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READINGS IN PHILOSOPHY 



i 



READINGS IN PHILOSOPHY 



COMPILED BY 



ALBERT EDWIN AVEY, Ph.D. 

Assistant Professor of Philosophy 
in the Ohio State University 



COLUMBUS, OHIO 

R. G. ADAMS AND COMPANY 
1921 






COPYRIGHT 1921 
BY 

A. E. AVEY 



Printed by 

The F. J. Heer Printing Co 

Columbus, Ohio 



jyL22':i 

©C!.A622145 



FOREWORD 

THIS volume is intended primarily as a sup- 
plement to Professor Leighton's "Field of 
Philosophy". But that work covered so com- 
pletely the entire territory of the subject that this 
volume in presenting the sources which Professor 
Leighton evidently had in mind becomes a fairly 
representative collection of the classic passages of 
philosophic literature, and may possibly be of in- 
dependent interest to some readers as such a col- 
lection. 

The necessity for readings supplementary to the 
other text and the difficulty of providing a reference 
library with sufficiently numerous copies for large 
classes afforded the motives for such a compilation. 
There are, of course, standard source books in 
philosophy in existence ; but none of them quite met 
the situation. Doubtless the ideal plan would be 
to have the student turn to the complete works and 
see the passages in their proper settings. This 
would in many instances stimulate curiosity and 
lead to further reading of passages of his own 
selection. It would also make possible the inter- 
pretation of important conceptions in the light of 
parallel references. But this does not prove prac- 
ticable in actual work. Hence, this volume is offered 
as something of a substitute. 

In selecting the passages the effort has been 
simply to illustrate by means of sources the essential 
pomts of Professor Leighton's discussion. In many 

(v) 



vi Foreword 

instances other passages might have been chosen. 
Limitation of space and scope made impossible any 
attempt to present an exhaustive treatment of any 
topic. 

Professor Leighton has reviewed the work and 
given it his general approval. I am indebted to 
him for suggestions in many places. But I assume 
responsibility for the choice of most of the selections. 

I am indebted also to Professor A. R. Chandler 
for suggestions and assistance, especially in connec- 
tion with several original translations. 

My obligations to the publishers and holders of 
copyrights who have generously allowed me to re- 
produce material are very great. Specific acknowl- 
edgments are made in connection with the passages 
printed. 

In making translations the student was kept in 
mind rather than the expert critic. For this reason 
a somewhat well-established vocabulary has been 
departed from because of its unfamiliarity to be- 
ginners. The translations have been undertaken 
partly for exercise, partly as the easiest way out of 
certain difficulties. Of each of them the translator 
would say, in the words of another and better known 
philosopher, "An ill-favored thing, sir, but mine 
own." 

Albert E. Avey. 

Ohio State University. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter I. Philosophy, Its Meaning and Scope 

A. The Philosopher the spectator of All 
Time and All Existence: Plato, Republic 1 

B. The Degrees of Knowledge: Plato, Re- 
public 4 

C. The Relation of Philosophy to Science; 
Spencer, First Principles 9 

D. The Difference Between Philosophy and 
Religion : Spinoza, Politico-theological 
Tractate 17 

E. The Similarity Between Philosophy and 
Religion: Hegel, Philosophy of Religion. 18 

Chapter II. Primitive Thought 

A. The Attributes of the Soul in Primitive 
Thought: Crawley, The Idea of the Soul 21 

B. Homeopathic Magic: Frazer, Golden 
Bough 28 

C. Contagious Magic: Frazer, Golden Bough 33 

Chapter III. The Differentiation of Philosophy 
AND Science from Religion. 

A. Native Fallacies of Human Thought: 
Bacon, Novura Organum 41 

B. Early Greek Philosophy, Fragments .... 48 

Chapter IV. Atomistic Materialism 

A. Leukippus and Democritus, Fragments . . 62 

B. Epicurus: Diogenes Laertius, Lives of 

the Philosophers 67 

C. Atomism in Roman Thought: Lucretius, 

De Rerum Natura 72 

Chapter V. Skepticism and Sophistry 

A. The Man Measure Doctrine of Protag- 
oras : Plato, Theaetetus 74 

B. The Superiority of Persuasion Over 
Knowledge: Plato, Gorgias 84 

C. Later Greek Skepticism: Sextus Empiri- 

cus, Pyrrhonic Sketches 89 

(vii) 



viii Contents 

I PAGE 

Chapter VI. The Personality, Mission and Influ- 
ence OF Socrates 
A. Socrates's Statement of the Cause of His 

Indictment: Plato, Apology 96 

B. The Socratic Maieutic: F\ato,Theae- 

tetus 103 

C. The Fundamental Value of Human Life: 

Plato, Republic 106 

Chapter VII. Plato 

A. Theory of Knowledge and Love: Phae- 
drus ; Meno 113 

B. Allegory of The Cave: Republic 137 

C. Cosmology : Timaeus 146 

D. Teleology: Phaedo 160 

E. Idea of the Good: Republic 164 

F. Psychology : Timaeus 168 

G. The Cardinal Virtues : Republic 171 

Chapter VIII. Aristotle 

A. Analysis of the Process of Change: Meta- 
physics 186 

B. Grades of Soul: Psychology 193 

C. Epistemology: Psychology 195 

D. The Highest Good : Ethics 199 

Chapter IX. Stoic Pantheism 

A. Epicurean Hedonism: Diogenes Laertius 
Lives of the Philosophers 202 

B. Stoicism : Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the 
Philosophers 206 

Chapter X. Mysticism — Neo-Platonism 

A. On The One: Plotinus, Enneads 219 

B. Emanation 222 

C. Intellect 225 

D. Soul 228 

E. Matter 231 

F. Sin and Salvation 234 



Contents ix 

^ PAGE 

Chapter XI. Early Christian Philosophy 

A. Christian Ethics: Gospel of Matthew. . . . 238 

B. The Crucifixion and Resurrection : Gospel 

of Mark 242 

C. The Logos Doctrine: Gospel of Johyl .... 246 

D. Paul's Theology: / Corinthians 247 

Chapter XII. Mediaeval Philosophy 

A. Augustine's Doctrine of Evil : Enchir- 
idion 252 

B. The Relation of Faith and Understand^ 
ing; and t"he Ontological Proof: Anselm, 
Proslogiiim 257 

C. Realism: Thomas Aquinas, Summa The- 
ologica 261 

Chapter XIII. Modern Philosophy: Its Spirit, Its 
Chief Problems and Standpoints 
A. Bibliography 267 

Chapter XIV. The Problem of Reality 

A. Bibliography 268 

Chapter XV. Dualism 

A. Descartes on The Nature of the Mind: 
Meditations 269 

B. Descartes on The Existence of Material 
Things : Meditations 270 

C. Interaction of Mind and Body: Descartes, 

The Passions of the Soul 272 

D. Locke on the Ideas of Solidity and 
Spirit : Essay Conceryiing Human Under- 
standing 274 

Chapter XVI. Materialism 

A. The Distinction Between Primary and 
Secondary Qualities : Locke, Essay 283 

B. The Idea of Substance: Locke, Essay. . . 288 

C. The Interrelation of Brain and Mind: 
Buechner, Force and Matter 292 



X Contents 

PAGE 

Chapter XVII. The Philosophy of Kant 

A. The Problem of the Critique of Pure 
Reason : Watson's Selections From Kant 302 

B. The Result of the Transcendental Ana- 
lytic: Watson's Selections 309 

C. The Postulates of Practical Reason; 
Watson's Selections 315 

Chapter XVIII. Spiritualism or Idealism 

A. The Existence of the Material World: 
Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowl- 
edge 323. 

B. Monadology: heihniz, The Monadology. . 331 

C. Primacy of the Will in Philosophy: 
Fichte, The Vocation of Man 339 

D. The Objectivity of Thought: Hegel, Lo£^ic 353 

Chapter XIX. The Identity or Double Aspect Theory 

A. The Order of Ideas the Same as of 
Things : Spinoza, Ethics 370 

B. Ideas Things in Special Relation : James, 
Essays in Radical Empiricism 372 

Chapter XX. Singularism and Pluralism 

A. God as Substance: Spinoza, Ethics 378 

B. The Absolute: Hegel, Phenomenology of 
Mind 388 

C. Pluralism versus Monism: James, A 
Pluralistic Universe 400 

Chapter XXI. The Problem of Evolution and 
Teleology 
A. The Meaning of Evolution: Bergson, 

Creative Evolution 417 

Chapter XXII. The Self 

A. The Original Datum of Knowledge: Des- 
cartes, Meditations 441 

B. Skeptical Doubts About the Existence of 

The Self: Hume, Treatise 444 



Contents xi 

PAGE 

C. The Synthetic Unity of Apperception: 
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 459 

D. Freedom: Kant, Metaphysics of Morality 475 

Chapter XXIII. The Fundamental Concepts of 
Metaphysics 

A. Nature of the Categories : Kant, Critique 

of Pure Reason 485 

B. Deduction of the Categories: Kant, 
Critique of Pure Reason 492 

C. Causality: Hume, Enquiry Concerning 

the Human Understanding 503 

D. Potentiality: Aristotle, Metaphysics... 521 

E. Space: Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.. 524 

F. Time: Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. . . 527 

Chapter XXIV. Epistemology 

A. The Motive of Epistemology: Locke, 
Essay 533 

B. The Origin of Ideas: Locke, Essay 534 

C. The A Priori Element in Knowledge: 
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 542 

D. Objective Idealism: Royce, The World 

and the Individual 547 

Chapter XXV. The Criteria of Truth 

A. The Copy Theory: hocke, Essay 557 

B. The Pragmatist Idea of Truth: James, 
Pragmatism 568 

C. Absolutism: Royce, William James and 
Other Essays 575 

Chapter XXVI. The Status of Values 

A. Supernaturalism: Exodus 580 

B. Agnostic Relativism: Russell, Mysticism 

and Logic 582 

C. The Oneness of God and Man: Royce, 

The World and The Individual 590 



xii Contents 

PAGE 

Chapter XXVII. The Philosophy of History 

A. Hebrew Prophetic Interpretation of His- 
tory: A7nos, Isaiah 621 

B. Mediaeval Philosophy of History: Au- 
gustine, City of God 624 

C. Reason in History: Hegel, Philosophy of 
History 632 

D. The Law of Development: Comte, Pos- 
itive Philosophy 672 



CHAPTER I 

PHILOSOPHY, ITS MEANING AND SCOPE 

A. The Philosopher the Spectator of All 
Time and All Existence 

In the following passage from Plato's Dialogues 
the famous Athenian philosoper, Socrates, is repre- 
sented in conversation with Glaucon, a young friend 
of his, when the discussion turns to the question of 
the qualifications necessary for a philosopher. The 
longer speeches are from Socrates; the shorter 
from Glaucon: 

The ^ genuine lover of knowledge must, from his 
youth up, strive intensely after all truth. 

Yes, he must thoroughly. 

Well, but we cannot doubt that when a person's 
desires set strongly in one direction, they run with 
corresponding feebleness in every other channel, 
like a stream whose waters have been diverted into 
another bed. 

Undoubtedly they do. 

So that when the current has set towards science, 
and all its branches, a man's desires will, I fancy, 
hover around pleasures that are purely mental, 
abandoning those in which the body is instru- 



'^ Plato, Republic, Book VI, 485c-487a; translation of 
Davies and Vaughan, 1916, published by The Macmillan 
Company; reprinted by permission. 

(1) 



2 Readings in Philosophy 

mental, — provided that the man's love of wisdom 
is real, not artificial. 

It cannot be otherwise. 

Again, such a person will be temperate and thor- 
oughly uncovetous : for he is the last person in the 
world to value those objects, which make men anxi- 
ous for money at any cost. 

True. 

Once more, there is another point which you 
ought to take into consideration, when you are en- 
deavoring to distinguish a philosophic from an un- 
philosophic character. 

What is that? 

You must take care not to overlook any taint of 
meanness. For surely little-mindedness thwarts 
above everything the soul that is destined ever to 
aspire to grasp truth, both divine and human, in its 
integrity and universality. 

That is most true. 

And do you think that a spirit full of lofty 
thoughts, and privileged to contemplate all time, and 
all existence, can possibly attach any great im- 
portance to this life ? 

No, it is impossible. 

Then such a person will not regard death as a 
formidable thing, will he? 

Certainly not. 

So that a mean and cowardly character can have 
no part, as it seems, in true philosophy. 

I think it cannot. 

What then? Can the man whose mind is well- 
regulated, and free from covetousness, meanness, 



Philosophy, its Meaning and Scope 3 

pretentiousness, and cowardice, be by any possibility 
hard to deal with or unjust? 

No; it is impossible. 

Therefore, when you are noticing the indications 
of a philosophical or unphilosophical temper, you 
must also observe in early youth whether the mind 
is just and gentle, or unsociable and fierce. 

Quite so. 

There is still another point, which I think you 
must certainly not omit. 

What is that? 

Whether the mind in question is quick or slow 
at learning. For you can never expect a person to 
take a decent delight in an occupation which he 
goes through with pain, and in which he makes 
small progress with great exertion? 

No, it would be impossible. 

Again, if he caii remember nothing of what he 
has learned, can he fail, being thus full of forget- 
fulness, to be void of knowledge? 

No, he cannot. 

Then, will not his fruitless toil, think you, com- 
pel him at last to hate both himself and such em- 
ployment? 

Doubtless it will. 

Let us never, then, admit a forgetful mind into 
the ranks of those that are counted worthy of 
philosophy; but let us look out for a good memory 
as a requisite for such admission. 

Yes, by all means. 

Again, we should certainly say that the tendency 
of an unrefined and awkward nature is wholly to- 
wards disproportion. 

Certainly. 



4 Readings in Philosophy 

And do you think that truth is akin to dispropor- 
tion, or to proportion? 

To proportion. 

In addition, then, to our other acquirements, let 
us search for a mind naturally well-proportioned 
and graceful, whose native instincts will permit it 
to be easily led to apprehend the Forms of things 
as they really are. 

By all means. 

What then ? Do you think that the qualities which 
we have enumerated are in any way unnecessary 
or inconsistent with one another, provided the soul 
is to attain unto full and satisfactory possession of 
real existence? 

On the contrary, they are most strictly neces- 
sary. 

Then can you find any fault with an employment 
which requires of a man who would pursue it satis- 
factorily, that nature shall have given him a reten- 
tive memory, and made him quick at learning, lofty- 
minded and graceful, the friend and brother of 
truth, justice, fortitude, and temperance? 

No, he replied ; the very Genius of criticism could 
find no fault with such an employment. 

B. The Degrees of Knowledge 

In the following passage Plato represents Soc- 
rates as discussing the degrees of knowledge from 
the lowest, the most uncertain opinion received at 
second hand, up to the highest or presuppositionless 
knowledge : 



Philosophy, its Meaning and Scope 5 

Suppose ^ you take a line divided into two un- 
equal parts, — one to represent the visible class of 
objects, the other the intellectual, — and divide 
each part again into two segments on the same 
scale. Then, if you make the lengths of the seg- 
ments represent degrees of distinctness or indis- 
tinctness, one of the two segments on the part which 
stands for the visible world will present all images : 
— meaning by images, first of all, shadows ; and, in 
the next place, reflections in water, and in close- 
grained, smooth, bright substances, and everything 
of the kind, if you understand me. 

Yes, I do understand. 

Let the other segment stand for the real objects 
corresponding to these images, — namely, the ani- 
mals about us, and the whole world of nature and 
of art. 

Very good. 

Would you also consent to say that, with refer- 
ence to this class, there is, in point of truth and un- 
truthfulness, the same distinction between the copy 
and the original, that there is between what is mat- 
ter of opinion and what is matter of knowledge? 

Certainly I should. 

Then let us proceed to consider how we must 
divide that part of the whole line which represents 
the intellectual world. 

How must we do it? 

Thus : one segment of it will represent what the 
soul is compelled to investigate by the aid of the 
segments of the other part, which it employs as 



Ubid., Book VI, 509e-511e. 

2 



6 . Readings in Philosophy 

images, starting- from hypotheses, and travelling not 
to a first principle, but to a conclusion. The other 
segment will represent the objects of the soul, as 
it makes its way from an hypothesis to a first princi- 
ple which is not hypothetical, unaided by those 
images which the former division employs, and 
shaping its journey by the sole help of real essential 
forms. 

I have not understood your description so well 
as I could wish. 

Then we will try again. You will understand me 
more easily when I have made some previous ob- 
servations. I think you know that the students of 
subjects like geometry and calculation, assume by 
way of materials, in each investigation, all odd and 
even numbers, figures, three kinds of angles, and 
other similar data. These things they are supposed 
to know, and having adopted them as hypotheses, 
they decline to give any account of them, either to 
themselves or to others, on the assumption that 
they are self-evident ; and, making these their start- 
ing point, they proceed to travel through the re- 
mainder of the subject, and arrive at last, with 
perfect unanimity, at that which they have proposed 
as the object of investigation. 

I am perfectly aware of the fact, he replied. 

Then you also know that they summon to their 
aid visible forms, and discourse about them, though 
their thoughts are busy not with these forms, but 
with their originals, and though they discourse not 
with a view to the particular square and diameter 
which they draw, but with a view to the absolute 



Philosophy, its Meaning and Scope 7 

square and the absolute diameter, and so on. For 
while they employ by way of images those figures 
and diagrams aforesaid, which again have their 
shadows and images in water, they are really en- 
deavouring^ to behold those abstractions which a 
person can only see with the eye of thought. 

True. 

This, then, was the class of things which I called 
intellectual; but I said that the soul is constrained 
to employ hypotheses while engaged in the investi- 
gation of them, — not travelling to a first principle, 
(because it is unable to step out of, and mount 
above, its hypotheses,) but using, as images, just 
the copies that are presented by things below, — 
which copies, as compared with the originals, are 
vulgarly esteemed distinct and valued accordingly. 

I understand you to be speaking of the subject- 
matter of the various branches of geometry and the 
kindred arts. 

Again, by the second segment of the intellectual 
world understand me to mean all that the mere 
reasoning process apprehends by the force of 
hypotheses not as first principles, but as genuine 
hypotheses, that is to say, as stepping-stones and 
impulses, whereby it may force its way up to some- 
thing that is not hypothetical, and arrive at thei first 
principle of everything, and seize it in its grasp; 
which done, it turns round, and takes hold of that 
which takes hold of this first principle, till at last 
it comes down to a conclusion, calling in the aid of 
no sensible object whatever, but simply employing 
abstract, selfsubsisting forms, and terminating in 
the same. 



8 Readings in Philosophy 

I do not understand you so well as I could wish, 
for I believe you to be describing an arduous task; 
but at any rate I understand that you wish to de- 
clare distinctly, that the field of real existence and 
pure intellect, as contemplated by the science of 
dialectic, is more certain than the field investigated 
by what are called the arts, in which hypotheses 
constitute first principles, which the students are 
compelled, it is true, to contemplate with the mind 
and not with the senses; but, at the same time, as 
they do not come back, in the course of inquiry, to 
a first principle, but push on from hypothetical 
premises, you think that they do not exercise pure 
reason on the questions that engage them, although 
taken in connection with a first principle these ques- 
tions come within the domain of the pure reason. 
And I believe you apply the term understanding, 
not pure reason, to the mental habit of such people 
as geometricians, — regarding understanding as 
something intermediate between opinion and pure 
reason. 

You have taken in my meaning most satisfac- 
torily ; and I beg you will accept these four mental 
states, as corresponding to the four segments, — 
namely pure reason corresponding to the highest, 
understanding to the second, belief to the third, and 
conjecture to the last; and pray arrange them in 
gradation, and believe them to partake of distinct- 
ness in a degree corresponding to the truth of their 
respective objects. 

I understand you, said he. I quite agree with 
you, and will arrange them as you desire. 



Philosophy, its Meaning and Scope 9 

C. The Relation of Philosophy to Science 
A classic discussion of this topic is to be found 
in the following selection from the writings of the 
modern philosopher, Herbert Spencer: 

Sec. 36. Earlier ^ speculations being passed over, 
we see that among the Greeks, before there had 
arisen any notion of philosophy in general, apart 
from particular forms of philosophy, the particular 
forms of it from which the general notion was to 
arise, were hypotheses respecting some universal 
principle that constituted the essence of all concrete 
kinds of being. To the question, "What is that in- 
variable existence of which these are variable 
states ?" there were sundry answers — w^ater, air, 
fire. A class of hypotheses of this all-embracing 
character having been propounded it became possible 
for Pythagoras to conceive of philosophy in the ab- 
stract as knowledge the most remote from practical 
ends ; and to define it as "knowledge of immaterial 
and eternal things:" "the cause of the material ex- 
istence of things," being, in his view, number. 
Thereafter, we find continued a pursuit of Phil- 
osophy as some ultimate interpretation of the uni- 
verse, assumed to be possible, whether actually 
reached in any case or not. And in the course of 
this pursuit various such ultimate interpretations 
were given as that "One is the beginning of all 
things;" that "the one is God;" that "the one is 
finite;" that "the one is infinite;" that "intelligence 
is the governing principle of things," and so on. 



^Spencer, First Principles, Sections 36, 37; 5th London 
Edition; reprinted from A. L. Burt's Home Library. 



10 Readings in Philosophy 

From all which it is plain that the knowledge sup- 
posed to constitute philosophy, differed from other 
knowledge in its transcendent exhaustive character. 

In the subsequent course of speculation, after the 
sceptics had shaken men's faith in their powers of 
reaching such transcendent knowledge, there grew 
up a much restricted conception of philosophy. 
Under Socrates, and still more under the stoics, 
philosophy became little else than the doctrine of 
right living. Its subject matter was practically cut 
down to the proper ruling of conduct, public and 
private. Not, indeed, that the proper ruling of con- 
duct, as conceived by sundry of the later Greek 
thinkers to constitute the subject-matter of phil- 
osophy, answered to what was popularly under- 
stood by the proper ruling of conduct. The injunc- 
tions of Zeno were not of the same class as those 
which guided men from early times downward, in 
their daily observances, sacrifices, customs, all hav- 
ing more or less of religious sanction ; but they were 
principles of action enunciated without reference 
to times, or persons, or special cases. 

What, then, was the constant element in these 
unlike ideas of philosophy held by the ancients? 
Clearly the character in which this last idea agrees 
with the first, is that within its sphere of inquiry 
philosophy seeks for wide and deep truths, as dis- 
tinguished from the multitudinous detailed truths 
which the surfaces of things and actions present. 

By comparing the conceptions of philosophy that 
have been current in modern times, we get a like re- 
sult. The disciples of Schelling, Fichte and their 
kindred, join the Hegelian in ridiculing the so- 



Philosophy, its Meaning mid Scope 11 

called philosophy which has usurped the title in 
England, Not without reason, they laugh on read- 
ing of "philosophical instruments;" and would deny 
that any one of the papers in the "Philosophical 
Transactions" has the least claim to come under 
such a title. Retaliating on their critics, the Eng- 
lish may, and most of them do, reject as absurd the 
imagined philosophy of the German schools. As con- 
sciousness cannot be transcended, they hold that 
whether consciousness does or does not vouch for 
the existence of something beyond itself, it at any 
rate cannot comprehend that something; and that 
hence, in so far as any philosophy professes to be 
an ontology, it is false. These two views cancel one 
another over large parts of their areas. The Eng- 
lish criticism on the Germans cuts off from phil- 
osophy all that is regarded as absolute knowledge. 
The German criticism on the English tacitly implies 
that if philosophy is limited to the relative, it is at 
any rate not concerned with those aspects of the 
relative which are embodied in mathematical 
formula, in accounts of physical researches, in 
chemical analyses, or in descriptions of species and 
reports of physiological experiments. 

Now, what has the too-wide German conception 
in common with the conception general among Eng- 
lish men of science; which, narrow and crude as it 
is, is not so narrow and crude as their misuse of 
the word philosophical indicates? The two have 
this in common, that neither Germans nor English 
apply the word to unsystematized knowledge — to 
knowledge quite un-coordinated with other knowl- 
edge. Even the most limited specialist would not 



12 Readings in Philosophy 

describe as philosophical an essay which, dealing 
wholly with details, manifested no perception of the 
bearings of those details on wider truths. 

The vague idea thus raised of that in which the 
various conceptions of philosophy agree, may be 
rendered more definite by comparing what has been 
known in England as natural philosophy with that 
development of it called positive philosophy. 
Though, as M. Comte admits, the two consist of 
knowledge essentially the same in kind, yet, by 
having put this kind of knowledge into a more 
coherent form, he has given it more of that char- 
acter to which the term philosophical is applied. 
Without expressing any opinion respecting the 
truth of his co-ordination, it must be conceded that 
by the fact of its co-ordination the body of knowl- 
edge organized by him has a better claim to the 
title philosophy than has the comparatively unor- 
ganized body of knowledge named natural phil- 
osophy. 

If subdivisions of philosophy, or more special 
forms of it, be contrasted with one another, or vdth 
the whole, the same implication comes out. Moral 
philosophy and political philosophy agree with phil- 
osophy at large in the comprehensiveness of their 
reasonings and conclusions. Though under the head 
of moral philosophy we treat of human actions as 
right or wrong, we do not include special direction 
for behavior in the nursery, at table or on the ex- 
change; and though political philosophy has for its 
topic the conduct of men in their public relations, it 
does not concern itself with modes of voting or de- 
tails of administration. Both of these sections of 



Philosophy, its Meaning and Scope 13 

philosophy contemplate particular instances only as 
Illustrating truths of wide application. 

Sec. 37. Thus every one of these conceptions im- 
plies the belief in a possible way of knowing things 
more completely than they are known through simple 
experiences, mechanically accumulated in memory or 
heaped up in cyclopaedias. Though in the extent of 
the sphere which they have supposed philosophy to 
fill, men have differed and still differ very widely; 
yet there is a real if unavowed agreement among 
them in signifying by this title a knowledge which 
transcends ordinary knowledge. That which re- 
mains as the common element in these conceptions 
of philosophy after the elimination of their discord- 
ant elements is knoivledge of the highest degree of 
generality. We see this tacitly asserted by the sim- 
ultaneous inclusion of God, nature and man within 
its scope; or, still more distinctly, by the division 
of philosophy as a whole, into theological, physical, 
ethical, etc. For that which characterizes the genus 
of which these are species must be something more 
general than that which distinguishes any one 
species. 

What must be the shape here given to this con- 
ception? The range of intelligence we find to be 
limited to the relative. Though persistently con- 
scious of a power manifested to us we have aban- 
doned as futile the attempt to learn anything re- 
specting the nature of that power ; and so have shut 
out philosophy from much of the domain supposed 
to belong to it. The domain left is that occupied by 
science. Science concerns itself with the co-exist- 
ences and sequences among phenomena; grouping 



14 Readings in Philosophy 

these at first into generalizations of a simple or low 
order, and rising gradually to higher and more ex- 
tended generalizations. But, if so, where remains 
any subject-matter for philosophy? 

The reply is : philosophy may still properly be the 
title retained for knowledge of the highest gen- 
erality. Science means merely the family of the 
sciences — stands for nothing more than the sum of 
knowledge formed of their contributions ; and ig- 
nores the knowledge constituted by the fusion of 
these contributions into a whole. As usage has de- 
fined it, science consists of truths existing more or 
less separated; and does not recognize these truths 
as entirely integrated. An illustration will make 
the difference clear: 

If we ascribe the flow of a river to the same 
force which causes the fall of a stone we make a 
statement true as far as it goes, that belongs to a 
certain division of science. If, in further explana- 
tion of a movement produced by gravitation in a 
direction almost horizontal, we cite the law that 
fluids subject to mechanical forces exert reactive 
forces which are equal in all directions, we formu- 
late a wider fact, containing the scientific interpre- 
tation of many other phenomena ; as those presented 
by the fountain, the hydraulic press, the steam- 
engine, the air-pump. And when this proposition, 
extending only to the dynamics of fluids, is merged 
in a proposition of general dynamics, comprehend- 
ing the laws of movement of solids as well as of 
fluids, there is reached a yet higher truth ; but still 



Philosophy , its Meaning and Scope 15 

a truth that comes wholly within the realm of 
science. 

Again, looking around at birds and mammals, 
suppose we say that air-breathing animals are hot- 
blooded; and that then, remembering how reptiles, 
which also breathe air, are not much warmer than 
their media, we say more truly, that animals 
(bulks being equal) have temperatures propor- 
tionate to the quantities of air they breathe; and 
that then, calling to mind certain large fish which 
maintain a heat considerably above that of the 
water they swim in, we further correct the gen- 
eralization by saying that the temperature varies as 
the rate of oxygenation of the blood ; and that then, 
modifying the statement to meet other criticisms, 
we finally assert the relation to be between the 
amount of heat and the amount of molecular 
change — supposing we do all this, we state scien- 
tific truths that are successively wider and more 
complete, but truths which, to the last, remain 
purely scientific. 

Once more if, guided by mercantile experiences, 
we reach the conclusion that prices rise when the 
demand exceeds the supply; that commodities flow 
from places where they are abundant to places 
where they are scarce; and that the industries of 
diflferent localities are determined in their kinds 
mainly by the facilities which the localities afford 
for them ; and if, studying these generalizations of 
political economy, we trace them all to the truth 
that each man seeks satisfaction for his desires in 
ways costing the smallest efforts — such social 



16 Readings in Philosophy 

phenomena being resultants of individual actions 
so guided ; we are still dealing with the propositions 
of science only. 

And now how is philosophy constituted? It is 
constituted by carrying a stage farther the process 
indicated. So long as these truths are known only 
apart and regarded as independent, even the most 
general of them cannot without laxity of speech be 
called philosophical. But when, having been sev- 
erally reduced to a simple mechanical axiom, a 
principle of molecular physics, and a law of social 
action, they are contemplated together as corollaries 
of some ultimate truth, then we rise to the kind of 
knowledge that constitutes philosophy proper. 

The truths of philosophy thus bear the same re- 
lation to the highest scientific truths that each of 
these bears to lower scientific truths. As each wid- 
est generalization of science comprehends and con- 
solidates the narrower generalizations of its own 
division, so the generalizations of philosophy com- 
prehend and consolidate the widest generalizations 
of science. It is, therefore, a knowledge of extreme 
opposite in kind to which experience first accumu- 
lates. It is the final product of that process which 
begins with a mere colligation of crude observations, 
goes on establishing propositions that are broader 
and more separated from particular cases, and ends 
in universal propositions. Or, to bring the defini- 
tion to the simplest and clearest form, knowledge 
of the lowest kind is un~unified knowledge; science 
is partially-unified knowledge; philosophy is com- 
pletely-unified knowledge. 



Philosophy, its Meaning and Scope . 17 

D. The Difference Between Philosophy and 
Religion 

The difference between the spirit and intent of 
Philosophy and Religion are dwelt upon in the fol- 
lowing passages from the Theologico-political Trac- 
tate of Baruch Spinoza : 

We^ said in an earlier chapter, that the purpose 
of Scripture is only to teach obedience. This no 
one can deny. Who does not see that either Testa- 
ment is nothing but a training in obedience, and 
that they intend nothing other than that men obey 
in the proper spirit? For, to pass over what I 
showed in the former chapter, Moses strove not to 
convince the Israelites by reason, but to bind them 
by a covenant, oaths, and the expectation of favors ; 
then he held the people subject to law through 
threats of punishment, and encouraged them to the 
same with rewards; all which measures are to the 
end not of knowledge but of obedience only. Evan- 
gelical teaching also contains nothing except simple- 
faith; namely, to trust in God and to revere him, 
or — which is the same thing — to obey God. I 
have no need then to multiply texts of Scripture 
which commend obedience, a number of which are 
to be found in each Testament, to prove a thing 
which is most manifest. Scripture itself also 
teaches in many places with utmost clearness what 
one must do to please God : namely, that the whole 
law consists in this alone, in love toward one's 



^Spinoza, B., Theologico-political Tractate, from ch. xiv; 
translated from the text of Van Vloten and Land, The 
Hague, 1914. 



18 Readings in Philosophy 

neighbor. Wherefore, no one can deny that he who 
in accordance with the command of God loves his 
neighbor as himself is really obedient and blessed 
according to the law, and that he who on the con- 
trary hates or neglects him is rebellious and ob- 
stinate. . 

The aim of philosophy is nothing but truth ; that 
of faith, as we have abundantly shown, nothing but 
obedience and piety. The foundations of philosophy 
are general principles, which must be sought from 
nature alone; that of faith, however, is history and 
language, and should be sought in Scripture and 
revelation alone. . . . Faith therefore grants 
the greatest liberty to every one to study philosophy ; 
so that one may hold with impunity whatever view 
he wishes regarding anything. It condemns as 
heretics and schismatics only those who teach views 
leading fo arrogance, hatred, and contentiousness; 
and on the contrary holds as faithful only those who 
teach justice and charity with all the might and 
power of their reason. 

E. The Similarity Between Philosophy and 
Religion 

The similarity in spirit and aim of philosophy 
and religion are emphasized in the following pas- 
sage from Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of 
Religion : 

When ^ we say that philosophy takes religion as 
one of its objects of study the two seem placed in 



^ Hegel, G. W. F., Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, 
pp. 5-7; translated from the edition of 1832. 



Philosophy, its Meaning and Scope 19 

a relation in which they are different from each 
other; they stand opposed the one to the other. In 
fact, however, it must be said that the content, the 
motive, and the interest, of philosophy are common 
to it and theology. 

The object of religion, as of philosophy, is the 
eternal truth in its objectivity; God, nothing but 
God, and the interpretation of God. Philosophy in- 
terprets itself only by interpreting religion; and by 
interpreting itself it interprets religion. It is like 
religion in its interest in the same object; it is the 
thinking spirit which pervades this object — the 
truth — , the inspiration and enjoyment, the correc- 
tion and purification of the subjective self-con- 
sciousness in and through this interest. 

Thus philosophy and religion merge. In fact 
philosophy itself is worship. But each is worship 
in its own way. It is in this peculiarity of the man- 
ner of concernment with God that they differ from 
each other. There lie the difficulties which appear 
so great that they seem to make it impossible that 
philosophy should be one with religion. Thence 
come theology's apprehensions regarding philosophy, 
the mutually hostile attitude of religion and phil- 
osophy. According to this hostile attitude (in so 
far as theology assumes it) philosophy appears to 
have a destructive, disturbing, desecrating effect 
upon the content of religion. This is the ancient 
opposition or contradiction which stands before us 
as generally recognized, and has more weight than 
the just asserted unity of religion and philosophy. 
The time seems now to have come when philosophy 
may concern itself with the consideration of re- 



20 Readings in Philosophy 

ligion in a more unprejudiced, a happier, and more 
wholesome manner. 

The connection of philosophy and theology is not 
new. It occurred in the case of those theologians 
who are called the Church Fathers, even the most 
eminent of them. They had studied deeply in the 
neo-platonic, neo-pythagorean, and neo-aristotelian 
philosophy, and went over to Christianity partly 
because of philosophy itself; in part they applied 
this depth of spirit which they had gained through 
the study of philosophy to the doctrines of Chris- 
tianity. To this philosophic training the Christian 
Church owes the first beginnings of a content to 
Christian doctrine, which could not yet be called 
formal "dogmatics". To be sure it is often said 
that it has been a disadvantage for Christianity to 
have acquired a definite content, a "dogmatic". 
Later we shall have something to say about the re- 
lation of a system of doctrines to religious feeling, 
to the thrill of pure devotion. 

This union of theology and philosophy we see 
also in the middle ages. Scholastic philosophy is one 
and the same with theology. Philosophy is theology, 
and theology philosophy. So little was it believed 
that conceptual knowledge was detrimental to theol- 
ogy that it was held to be essential to theology itself. 
Those great men — Anselm, and Abelard — de- 
veloped theology farther on the basis of philosophy. 



CHAPTER II 

PRIMITIVE THOUGHT 

A. The Attributes of the Soul in Primitive 
Thought 

The ^ soul is visible or invisible, generally the 
latter. As we have seen, it is invisible precisely be- 
cause it is seen with the brain, not with the eye. In 
some cases we find that spirits are not feared in the 
daytime because they are then invisible, but they 
are feared at night. Night is the time when souls 
are seen; they are not the "ghosts" of fancy, pro- 
duced by the absence of light, nor are they the 
images of dreams. The uncultured mind generally 
does its thinking when day is over. As the savage 
sits by the camp-fire before going to sleep, the 
images of his experiences move quickly through his 
brain ; that is to say, he sees a panorama of souls of 
men and things. The visual illusions arising from 
the contemplation of fire-light doubtless give rise 
to the representation of the. soul as a spark or a 
flame ; and the shapes seen in fire-light may at times 
be identified with souls. 

The substance of the soul is attenuated reality. 
The visual image, which is a replica of the percept, 
continually takes on the characteristics of the object 



'Crawley, A. E.: The Idea Of The Soul, pages 208-214; 
A. and C. Black, 1909; reprinted by permission of the pub- 
lishers and Mr. Crawley. 

(21) 

3 



22 Readings in Philosophy 

as they vary with circumstances. The Indians of 
Canada believe that souls bleed when stabbed with 
a knife. In the Middle Ages not only were bodies 
burned alive on earth, but souls were burned in hell. 
The Kafir gives his child an emetic to purge him of 
the Christianity he has learned at the Mission 
School. In China, Brazil, and Australia, mutilation 
of the body has a corresponding effect on the soul. 
If therefore a dead man is hamstrung or has his 
thumbs cut off, his soul will be harmless. In savage 
thought acquired characteristics are inherited by 
the disembodied soul. Souls, as in Fiji story, are 
subject to decomposition. Throughout history the 
idea of the soul has kept more or less, even after 
language has made it an abstraction, to a material 
substantiality. The mind cannot think a pure ab- 
straction or an immaterial substance. 

The materiality of the soul, therefore, is not the 
result of any materialistic doctrine, neither is its 
ethereality the result of idealism. Early men have 
no metaphysical dogmas about matter and energy, 
matter and spirit. To them all substance is the 
same, neither material nor immaterial, but neutral. 
Their attitude is unconsciously scientific. 

The attenuated substantiality of the soul is of 
course due to the fact that it is a memory image. 
This possesses volume, yet in a less degree than the 
percept. The filmy or vaporous quality of the soul 
is therefore due, not to its being the breath or the 
life, but to the fact that the memory image is fainter 
and less solid than the object. To this should be 
added the chief characteristic of sight in contrast 
to touch, since the memory-image is mainly visual. 



Primitive Thought 23 

The eye to a great extent lacks the experience of 
resistance, "there being nothing to constitute a re- 
sisting obstacle to the rotation of the ball, except 
its own very small inertia. Hence the eye with all 
its wide range and close-searching capabilities can- 
not be said to contribute to the fundamental con- 
sciousness of the object universe, the feeling of 
resistance". The same characteristic belongs to 
hearing. 

Which has the higher "reality", the body or the 
soul? Here again the savage does not dogmatise; 
all experience is real, though it may differ in de- 
gree. Death proves that the soul is more real, since 
it still exists in the memory of others when the 
body has passed away. It is also more real, because 
it tends to be more constant than the percept. The 
real person is uncertain in his movements and un- 
reliable in his acts; but the memory-image of the 
person is always more or less generalized by repeti- 
tion. Along this line are developed at a later stage 
the ideas of the formal cause of a thing and of the 
essence, or the thing in itself. It is of interest to 
note with reference to the repeating function of 
the brain, that repetition intensifies and confirms 
reality. On the other hand, the sense of touch turns 
the scale in favor of the body. For common sense 
the great test of reality is resistance; touch is the 
final criterion of the real presence. "Handle me 
and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as 
ye see me have". 

We may here refer to the current doctrine that 
early man confused subjective and objective reality. 
Sensations are referred to an external object. When 



24 Readings in Philosojjhy 

■the object is absent, and the same nervous center is 
stimulated, does tlie>mina refer the stimulus to the 
object? In the abnormal processes of hallucination 
and the projection of after images this is tem- 
porarily the case. The projection of memory- 
images is equally abnormal. Such experiences 
might produce the idea of the bilocation of objects, 
but not the idea of the soul. In any case, however, 
we must confine ourselves to normal experience. Is 
then the memory-image so intense in the primitive 
mind as to be mistaken for the percept? This is 
extremely improbable, as early man depended for his 
very existence on the power of discriminating 
mental and objective reality. Moreover, we con- 
tinually find cases where, though he ascribes reality 
to mental experience and to dream images, yet the 
reality is particularly noted as different. Kafir boys 
and girls "distinguish their dreams from their wak- 
ing experiences, though they think the dreams were 
real in a certain sense". This distinction is psycho- 
logically sound. 

Other characteristics of the soul which are de- 
rived from the characteristics of the memory-image 
are rapidity, evanescence, permanence leading to 
immortality, changelessness, and separability. 

The soul is a light, fluttering, or gliding thing, 
quick to come and quick to go, hard to catch and 
hard to detain. Hence it is symbolized by means 
of birds, butterflies, moths, flies, lizards, and snakes, 
light or fluttering or rapidly moving creatures. 
These characteristics are those of the image as it 
glides along the stream of consciousness. Only con- 
centrated attention can check its movement. 



Primitive Thought 25 

The soul of a man exists in a mental world, the 
brains of other men, until and even after he dies. 
As opposed to the changing movements of the owner, 
it is more or less stationary and changeless. It is 
a standard of reference. As has been suggested, it 
is automatically generalised by repetition. 

The germ of its immortality is the fact that it 
exists in the brains of others. A man dies, but his 
image remains. The fact of death does not neces- 
sarily alter the character of the memory image, 
though such alteration is found ; the permanence of 
the soul depends on the length of the memory of the 
survivors, on the affection the dead man inspired, or 
the strength of his personality. Remarkable char- 
acters develop into "ancestors" and "heroes". Their 
souls, regarded as connected with their remains, 
and then with their resting-places, receive artificial 
support in the way of food and drink, the soul of 
which they absorb, visible replicas and fetish-like 
symbols. In these methods of embodying a memory 
there is the beginning of a cult, of idols, shrines, 
and temples. 

The savage has no idea of absolute immortality. 
The soul itself dies; its existence, that is, depends 
on the memory of others. But neither has he any 
idea of absolute death of the organism. He avoids 
reflection on so disagreeable a subject, and never 
realizes the fact of his own annihilation. Death for 
him is rarely due to natural causes ; if it were not 
for magic, as producing disease and death, and for 
violence, man would live for an indefinite time. 
There is a flavour of scientiflc truth about this 
view. 



26 Readings in Philosophy 

The soul is, by the very fact of its origin, separ- 
able from the personality. Its connection with the 
latter is likely to be mysterious for the naive con- 
sciousness. In the presence of the person it 
coalesces with him or disappears ; it reappears in 
his absence, or when present, if the subject closes 
his eyes he sees the soul, if he opens them he sees 
the man. 

There are many results of this separability. The 
phenomena of sleep and dream, disease and death, 
constitute an Odyssey of the soul. This has often 
been described in its main features. Some less 
hackneyed details of adventure may here be noted 
in connection with the psychology of the ideas of 
separation and connection. 

These ideas are mainly derived from the relation 
of the memory-image to the percept. In the early 
stages it requires some effort to keep the image 
separate from the reality when the percept is avail- 
able. Accordingly peoples like the Australians 
cannot ''distinguish between body and soul". With 
the Kafirs body and soul are closely connected, "if 
not identical". The Bantu says "my body and soul 
are one; my soul is myself" 

Early thought, again, is more apt to connect than 
to separate. In reference to the primitive fear of 
thought, the probability may be noted that the fact 
of the object living in the brain of the subject is 
itself an uncanny experience. The mind is uneasy 
about such duality of existence. Conversely, when 
there is especial reason for fearing the object, the 
mind is afraid lest the image should become real, 
lest it should bring the object into sight, or be visu- 



Primitive Thought 27 

alised into reality, in other words, lest it should be 
exchanged for the percept. 

The theory of omens is connected with this prin- 
ciple. When a man has in his mind a picture of 
what he is about to do, any appearance that bears 
an analogy to his intended action is regarded as a 
possibility of realisation. If it is in harmony with 
the intention, it is a good omen, a help to satis- 
factory realisation; if it is antagonistic, it is evil 
and may frustrate the contemplated issue. 

The tendency to connect is shown in language, 
in thought, and in a multitude of early habits. 
Thus fragments of a man's personality, such as 
hair or nail-clippings, or clothes, retain a close con- 
nection, due originally not to any physical theory as 
might be inferred from sympathetic magic, nor to 
any notion of a "force" or "influence" pervading 
such parts of the whole, but simply to the compre- 
hensiveness of the percept and the image. The 
mind is loath to divide either. Apparently, how- 
ever, it is also prone to divide them. When analysis 
of the percept once begins, it goes far, and we have 
to deal with what amounts to a plurality of souls. 
The fact is that the original comprehensive totality, 
though desired by the mind, is more easily referred 
to by parts or symbols or tags. 

An instructive case of misconception in such ques- 
tions is to be found in what is reported of the 
Chinese. With this people, so profoundly religious, 
the value of the soul as compared with the body is 
said to be "almost entirely ignored". The explana- 
tion of this is that the Chinese mind identifies soul 
and personality, memory-image and percept, in a 



28 Readings in Philosophy 

very practical and scientific way. To the Chinese 
the man is the soul, and the soul is the man. The 
conviction that the soul has the shape of the body is 
one which calls up the body immediately before their 
eyes whenever they think of the soul. They will 
have no more dualism than the facts of nature 
demand. 

B. Homeopathic Magic 

One of the most classic discussions of primitive 
magic is to be found in the following passages from 
Frazer's "Golden Bough": 

Perhaps^ the most familiar application of the 
principle that like produces like is the attempt which 
has been made by many peoples in many ages to 
injure or destroy an enemy by fnjuring or destroy- 
ing an image of him, in the belief that, just as the 
image suffers, so does the man, and that when it 
perishes he must die. A few instances out of many 
may be given to prove at once the wide diffusion of 
the practice over the world and its remarkable per- 
sistence through the ages. For thousands of years 
ago it was known to the sorcerers of ancient India, 
Babylon, and Egypt, as well as of Greece and Rome, 
and at this daj^ it is still resorted to by cunning and 
malignant savages in Australia, Africa, and Scot- 
land. Thus the North American Indians, we are 
told, believe that by drawing the figure of a person in 
sand, ashes, or clay, or by considering any object as 



' Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough, Part I, The Magic Art, 
Vol. I; pages 55-60; 3d edition, 1913; reprinted by permission 
of Macmillan and Company, Ltd., London. 



Primitive Thought 29 

his body, and then pricking- it with a sharp stick or 
doing it any other injury, they inflict a correspond- 
ing injury on the person represented. For example, 
when an Ojebway Indian desires to work evil on 
any one, he makes a little wooden image of his 
enemy and runs a needle into its head or heart, or 
he shoots an arrow into it, believing that wherever 
the needle pierces or the arrow strikes the image, 
his foe will the same instant be seized with a sharp 
pain in the corresponding part of his body; but if he 
mtends to kill the person outright, he burns or 
buries the puppet, uttering certain magic words as 
he does so. So when a Cora Indian of Mexico 
wishes to kill a man, he makes a figure of him out 
of burnt clay, strips of cloth, and so forth, and then, 
muttering incantations, runs thorns throug"h the 
head or stomach of the figure to make his victim 
sufl^er correspondingly. Sometimes the Cora Indian 
makes a more beneficent use of this sort of homeo- 
pathic magic. When he wishes to multiply his 
flocks or herds, he models a figure of the animal he 
wants in wax or clay, or carves it from tuff, and 
deposits it in a cave of the mountains; for these 
Indians believe that the mountains are masters of 
all riches, including cattle and sheep. For every 
cow, deer, dog or hen he wants, the Indian has to 
sacrifice a corresponding image of the creature. This 
may help us to understand the meaning of the 
figures of cattle, deer, horses, and pigs which were 
dedicated to Diana at Nemi. They may have been 
the offerings of farmers or huntsmen who hoped 
thereby to multiply the cattle or the game. Simi- 
larly when the Todas of Southern India desire to 



30 Readings in Philosophy 

obtain more buffaloes, they offer silver images of 
these animals in the temples. The Peruvian Indians 
moulded images of fat mixed with grain to imitate 
the persons whom they disliked or feared, and then 
burned the effigy on the road where the intended 
victim was to pass. This they called burning his 
soul. But they drew a delicate distinction between 
the kinds of materials to be used in the manufacture 
of these images, according as the victim was an 
Indian or a Viracocha, that is, a Spaniard. To kill 
an Indian they employed maize and the fat of a 
llama, to kill a Spaniard they used wheat and the 
fat of a pig, because Viracochas did not eat llamas 
and preferred wheat to maize. 

A Malay charm of the same sort is as follows: 
Take parings of nails, hair, eyebrows, spittle, and 
so forth of your intended victim, enough to represent 
every part of his person, then make them up into 
his likeness with wax from a deserted bees' comb. 
Scorch the figure slowly by holding it over a lamp 
every night for seven nights, and say: 

"It is not wax that I am scorching, 
It is the liver, heart, and spleen of So-and-so that I 
scorch." 

After the seventh time burn the figure, and your vic- 
tim will die. This charm obviously combines the prin- 
ciples of homeopathic and contagious magic; since 
the image which is made in the likeness of an enemy 
contains things which once were in contact with 
him, namely, his nails, hair, and spittle. Another 
form of the Malay charm, which resembles the Ojeb- 
way practice still more closely, is to make a corpse 



Primitive Thought 31 

of wax from an empty bees' comb and of the length 
of a footstep ; then pierce the eye of the image, and 
your enemy is blind; pierce the stomach, and he is 
sick; pierce the head, and his head aches; pierce 
the breast, and his breast will suffer. If you would 
.kill him outright, transfix the image from the head 
downwards ; enshroud it as you would a corpse ; 
pray over it as if you were praying over the dead; 
then bury it in the middle of a path where your 
victim will be sure to step over it. In order that 
his blood may not be on your head, you should say : 

"It is not I tvho am burying him, 
It is Gabriel ivho is burying him." 

Thus the guilt of the murder will be laid on the 
shoulders of the archangel Gabriel, who is a great 
deal better able to bear it than you are. In eastern 
Java an enemy may be killed by means of a likeness 
of him drawn on a piece of paper, which is then in- 
censed or buried in the ground. Among the Min- 
angkabauers of Sumatra a man who is tormented 
by the passion of hate or of unrequited love will 
call in the help of a wizard in order to cause the 
object of his hate or love to suffer from a dangerous 
ulcer known as tinggam. After giving the wizard 
the necessary instructions as to the name, bodily 
form, dwelling, and family of the person in question, 
he makes a puppet which is supposed to resemble 
his intended victim; and repairs with it to a wood, 
where he hangs the image on a tree that stands 
quite by itself. Muttering a spell, he then drives 
an instrument through the navel of the puppet into 
the tree, till the sap of the tree oozes through the 



32 Readings in Philosophy 

hole thus made. The instrument which inflicts the 
wound bears the same name (ting gam) as the 
ulcer which is to be raised on the body of the victim, 
and the oozing sap is believed to be his or her life- 
spirit. Soon afterwards the person against whom 
the charm is directed begins to suffer from an ulcer,- 
which grows worse and worse till he dies, unless a 
friend can procure a piece of the wood of the tree to 
which the image is attached. 

The sorcerers of Mabuiag or Jervis Island, in 
Torres Straits, kept an assortment of effigies in 
stock ready to be operated on at the requirement of 
a customer. Some of the figures were of stone; 
these were employed when short work was to be 
made of a man or woman. Others were wooden; 
these gave the unhappy victim a little more rope, 
only, however, to terminate his prolonged sufferings 
by a painful death. The mode of operation in the 
latter case was to put poison, by means of a magical 
implement, into a wooden image, to which the name 
of the intended victim had been given. Next day 
the person aimed at would feel chilly, then waste 
away and die, unless the same wizard who had 
wrought the charm would consent to undo it. If 
the sorcerer pulled off an arm or leg of the image, 
the human victim felt pain in the corresponding 
limb of his body; but if the sorcerer restored the 
severed arm or leg to the figure, the man recovered. 
Another mode of compassing a man's death in Torres 
Straits was to prick a wax effigy of him or her 
with the spine of a sting-ray; so when the man 
whose name had been given to the waxen image 
next went afishing on the reef a sting-ray would 



Primitive Thought 33 

sting him in the exact part of his body where the 
waxen image had been pierced. Or the sorcerer 
might hang the effigy on the bough of a tree, and as 
it swayed to and fro in the wind the person repre- 
sented by it would fall sick. However, he would get 
well again" if a friend of his could induce the magi- 
cian to steady the figure by sticking it firmly in the 
sandy bottom of the sea. When the Lerons of 
Borneo wish to be revenged on an enemy, they make 
a wooden image of him and leave it in the jungle. 
As it decays, he dies. More elaborate is the proceed- 
ing 'adopted by the Kenyahs of Borneo in similar 
circumstances. The operator retires with the image 
to a quiet spot on the river bank, and when a hawk 
appears in a certain part of the sky, he kills a fowl, 
smears its blood on the image, and puts a bit of fat 
in the mouth of the figure, saying, "Put fat in his 
mouth". By that he means, "May his head be cut 
off, hung up in an enemy's house, and fed with fat 
in the usual way." Then he strikes at the breast of 
the image with a small wooden spear, throws it into 
a pool of water reddened with red earth, and after- 
wards takes it out and buries it in the ground. 

C. Contagious Magic 

Thus^ far we have been considering chiefly that 
branch of sympathetic magic which may be called 
homeopathic or imitative. Its leading principle, as 
we have seen, is that like produces like, or, in other 
words, that an effect resembles its cause. The other 
great branch of sympathetic magic, which I have 



^ Ibid., pages 174-177. 



34 Readings in Philosophy 

called Contagious Magic, proceeds upon the notion 
that things which have once been conjoined must re- 
main ever afterwards, even when quite dissevered 
from each other, in such a sympathetic relation that 
whatever is done to the one must similarly affect the 
other. Thus the logical basis of Contagious Magic, 
like that of Homeopathic Magic, is a mistaken as- 
sociation of ideas; its physical basis, if we may 
speak of such a thing, like the physical basis of 
Homeopathic Magic, is a material medium of some 
sort which, like the ether of modern physics, is as- 
sumed to unite distant objects and to convey im- 
pressions from one to the other. The most familiar 
example of Contagious Magic is the magical sym- 
pathy which is supposed to exist between a man and 
any severed portion of his person, as his hair or 
nails; so that whoever gets possession of human 
hair or nails may work his will, at any distance, 
upon the person from whom they were cut. This 
superstition is world-wide, . . . While like 
other superstitions it has had its absurd and 
mischievous consequences, it has nevertheless in- 
directly done much good by furnishing savages 
with strong, though irrational, motives for observ- 
ing rules of cleanliness which they might never have 
adopted on rational grounds. How the superstition 
has produced this salutary effect will appear from 
a single instance, which I will give in the words of 
an experienced observer. Amongst the natives of 
the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain *'it is, as a 
rule, necessary for the efficiency of a charm that it 
should contain a part of the person who is to be 
enchanted (for example, his hair), or a piece of his 



Primitive Thought 35 

clothing, or something that stands in some relation 
to him, such as his excrements, the refuse of his 
food, his spittle, his footprints, etc. All such ob- 
jects can be employed as panait, that is, as a medium 
for a papait or charm, consisting of an incantation 
or murmuring of a certain formula, together with 
the blowing into the air of some burnt lime which is 
held in the hand. It need hardly, therefore, be said 
that the native removes all such objects as well as he 
can. Thus the cleanliness which is usual in the 
houses and consists in sweeping the floor carefully 
every day, is by no means based on a desire for 
cleanliness and neatness in themselves, but purely 
on the effort to put out of the way anything that 
might serve an ill-wisher as a charm." I will 
now illustrate the principles of Contagious Magic 
by examples, beginning with its application to va- 
rious parts of the human body. 

Among the Australian tribes it was a common 
practice to knock out one or more of a boy's front 
teeth at those ceremonies of initiation to which 
every male member had to submit before he could 
enjoy the rights and privileges of a full-grown man. 
The reason of the practice is obscure. . . . All 
that concerns us here is the evidence of a belief that a 
sympathetic relation continued to exist between the 
lad and his teeth after the latter had been extracted 
from his gums. Thus among some of the tribes 
about the river Darling, in New South Wales, the 
extracted tooth was placed under the bark of a 
tree near a river or water hole; if the bark grew 
over the tooth, or if the tooth fell into the water, all 
was well; but if it were exposed and the ants ran 



36 Readings in Philosophy 

over it, the natives believed that the boy would 
suffer from a disease of the mouth. Among the 
Murring- and other tribes of New South Wales the 
extracted tooth was at first taken care of by an old 
man, and then passed from one headman to another, 
until it had gone all round the community, when it 
came back to the lad's father, and finally to the lad 
himself. But however it was thus conveyed from 
hand to hand, it might on no account be placed in a 
bag containing magical substances, for to do so 
would, they believed, put the owner of the tooth in 
great danger. The late Dr. Howitt once acted as 
custodian of the teeth which had been extracted 
from some novices at a ceremony of initiation, and 
the old men earnestly besought him not to carry 
them in a bag in which they knew that he had some 
quartz crystals. They declared that if he did so 
the magic of the crystals would pass into the teeth, 
and so injure the boys. Nearly a year after Dr. 
Howitt's return from the ceremony he was visited 
by one of the principal men of the Murring tribe, 
who had travelled some two hundred and fifty miles 
from his home to fetch back the teeth. This man 
explained that he had been sent for them because 
one of the boys had fallen into ill health, and it was 
believed that the teeth had received some injury 
which had affected him. He was assured that the 
teeth had been kept in a box apart from any sub- 
stances, like quartz crystals, which could influence 
them ; and he returned home bearing the teeth with 
him carefully wrapt up and concealed. In the Dieri 
tribe of South Australia the teeth knocked out at 
initiation were bound up in emu feathers, and kept 



Primitive Thought \ 37 

\ 
by the boy's father or his next-of-kin ur^til the 

mouth had healed, and even for long afterwards. 
Then the father, accompanied by a few old men, per- 
formed a ceremony for the purpose of taking all 
the supposed life out of the teeth. He made a low 
rumbling noise without uttering any words, blew 
two or three times with his mouth, and jerked the 
teeth through his hand to some little distance. 
After that he buried them about eighteen inches 
under ground. The jerking movement was meant 
to show that he thereby took all the life out of the 
teeth. Had he failed to do so, the boy would, in the 
opinion of the natives, have been liable to an ulcer- 
ated and wry mouth, impediment in speech, and 
ultimately a distorted face. This ceremony is in- 
teresting as a rare instance of an attempt to break 
the sympathetic link between a man and a severed 
part of himself by rendering the part insensitive. 

A^ curious application of the doctrine of con- 
tagious magic is the relation commonly believed to 
exist between a wounded man and the agent of the 
wound, so that whatever is subsequently done by or 
to the agent must correspondingly affect the patient 
either for good or evil. Thus Pliny tells us that 
if you have wounded a man and are sorry for it, 
you have only to spit on the hand that gave the 
wound, and the pain of the sufferer will be instantly 
alleviated. In Melanesia, if a man's friends get 
possession of the arrow which wounded him, they 



'Ibid., pp. 201-203. 
4 



38 Readings in Philosophy 

keep it in a damp place or in cool leaves, for then 
the iriflammation will be trifling, and will soon sub- 
side. Meantime the enemy who shot the arrow is 
hard at work to aggravate the wound by all the 
means in his power. For this purpose he and his 
friends drink hot and burning juices and chew irri- 
tating leaves, for this will clearly inflame and irri- 
tate the wound. Further, they keep the bow near 
the fire to make the wound which it has inflicted hot ; 
and for the same reason they put the arrowhead, if 
it has been recovered, into the fire. Moreover, they 
are careful to keep the bowstring taut and to twang 
it occasionally, for this will cause the wounded man 
to suffer from tension of the nerves and spasms of 
tetanus. Similarly when a Kwakiutl Indian of Brit- 
ish Columbia had bitten a piece out of an enemy's 
arm, he used to drink hot water afterwards for 
the purpose of thereby inflaming the wound in his 
foe's body. Among the Lkungen Indians of the 
same region it is a rule that an arrow, or any other 
weapon that has wounded a man, must be hidden 
by his friends, who have to be careful not to bring 
it near the fire till the wound is healed. If a knife 
or an arrow which is still covered with a man's 
blood were thrown into the fire, the wounded man 
would suffer very much. In the Yerkla-mining 
tribe of southeastern Australia it is thought that if 
any one but the medicine man touches the flint knife 
with which a boy has been subincised, the boy will 
thereby be made very ill. So seriously is this be- 
lief held that if the lad chanced thereafter to fall 
sick and die, the man who had touched the knife 



Primitive Thought \ 39 



would be killed. *'It is constantly received and 
avouched," says Bacon, "that the anointing of the 
weapon that maketh the wound will heal the wound 
itself. In this experiment, upon the relation of 
men of credit (though myself, as yet, am not fully 
inclined to believe it) , you shall note the points 
following: first, the ointment wherewith this is 
done is made of divers ingredients, whereof the 
strangest and hardest to come by are the moss upon 
the skull of a dead man unburied, and the fats of a 
boar and a bear killed in the act of generation." 
The precious ointment compounded out of these and 
other ingredients was applied, as the philosopher 
explains, not to the wound but to the weapon, and 
that even though the injured man was at a great 
distance and knew nothing about it. The experi- 
ment, he tells us, had been tried of wiping the oint- 
ment off the weapon without the knowledge of the 
person hurt, with the result that he was presently 
in a great rage of pain until the weapon was 
anointed again. Moreover, "it is affirmed that if 
you cannot get the weapon, yet if you put an instru- 
ment of iron or wood resembling the weapon into 
the wound, whereby it bleedeth, the anointing of 
that instrument will serve and work the effect." 
Remedies of the sort which Bacon deemed worthy 
of his attention are still in vogue in the eastern 
counties of England. Thus in Suffolk if a man cuts 
himself with a bill-hook or a scythe he always takes 
care to keep the weapon bright, and oils it to pre- 
vent the wound from festering. If he runs a thorn 
or, as he calls it, a bush into his hand, he oils or 



40 Readings in Philosophy 

greases the extracted thorn. A man came to a doc- 
tor with an inflamed hand, having run a thorn into 
it while he was hedging. On being told that the 
hand was festering, he remarked, "That didn't ought 
to, for I greased the bush well arter I pulled it out." 



CHAPTER III 

THE DIFFERENTIATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND 
SCIENCE FROM RELIGION 

A. Native Fallacies of Human Thought 

There is no classic discussion of the breakdown 
of primitive thought and the development of the 
consciousness of correct principles, suitable for our 
present purpose, but the following classic passages 
from Francis Bacon point out native tendencies to 
error on the part of the mind, tendencies which are 
at the basis of the fallacies the primitive man con- 
stantly commits: 

XLV 

The^ human understanding is of its own nature 
prone to suppose the existence of more order and 
regularity in the world than it finds. And though 
there be many things in nature which are singular 
and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels 
and conjugates and relatives which do not 

exist 

XLVI 

The human understanding when it has once 
adopted an opinion (either as being the received 
opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all 
things else to support and agree with it. And 
though there be a greater number and weight of 

^ Bacon, Francis, Novum Organum; edition of 1863. 

(41) 



42 Readings in Philosophy 

instances to be found on the other side, yet these it 
either neglects and despises, or else by some distinc- 
tion sets aside and rejects; in order that by this 
great and pernicious predetermination the authority 
of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And 
therefore it was a good answer that was made by 
one who when they showed him hanging in a temple 
a picture of those who had paid their vows as having 
escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether 
he did not acknowledge the power of the gods, — 
"Aye," asked he again, ''but where are they painted 
that were drowned after their vows?" And such 
is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, 
dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; 
wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, 
mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where 
they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect 
and pass them by. But with far more subtlety does 
this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and 
the sciences; in which the first conclusion colours 
and brings into conformity with itself all that come 
after, though far sounder and better. Besides, in- 
dependently of that delight and vanity which I have 
described, it is the peculiar and perpetual error of 
the human intellect to be more moved and excited by 
affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought 
properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards 
both alike. Indeed in the establishment of any 
true axiom, the negative instance is the more 
forcible of the two. 

XLVII 

The human understanding is moved by those 
things most which strike and enter the mind simul- 



Dijferentiation of Philosophy and Science 43 

taneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination ; 
and then it feigns and supposes all other things to 
be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to 
those few things by which it is surrounded. But 
for that going to and fro to remote and hetero- 
geneous instances, by which axioms are tried as in 
the fire, the intellect is altogether slow and unfit, 
unless it be forced thereto by severe laws and over- 
ruling authority. 

XLIX 

The human understanding is no dry light, but re- 
ceives an infusion from the will and affections; 
whence proceed sciences which may be called 
"sciences as one would." For what a man had 
rather were true he more readily believes. There- 
fore he rejects difficult things from impatience of 
research; sober things, because they narrow hope; 
the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the 
light of experience, from arrogance and pride, lest 
his mind should seem to be occupied with things 
mean and transitory ; things not commonly believed, 
out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Num- 
berless in short are the ways, and sometimes im- 
perceptible, in which the affections colour and infect 
the understanding. 

L 

But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration 
of the human understanding proceeds from the dull- 
ness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses ; in 
that things which strike the sense outweigh things 
which do not immediately strike it, though they be 
more important. Hence it is that speculation com- 



44 Readings in Philosophy 

monly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of 
things invisible there is little or no observation. 
Hence all the working of the spirits inclosed in tan- 
gible bodies lies hid and unobserved of men. So 
also all the more subtle changes of form in the parts 
of coarser substances (which they commonly call 
alteration, though it is in truth local motion through 
exceedingly small spaces) is in like manner unob- 
served. And yet unless these two things just men- 
tioned be searched out and brought to light, noth- 
ing great can be achieved in nature, as far as the 
production of works is concerned. So again the 
essential nature of our common air, and of all bodies 
less dense than air (which are very many), is al- 
most unknown. For the sense by itself is a thing 
infirm and erring; neither can instruments for en- 
larging or sharpening the senses do much ; but all 
the truer kind of interpretation of nature is effected 
by instances and experiments fit and apposite; 
wherein the sense decides touching the experiment 
only, and the experiment touching the point in na- 
ture and the thing itself.- 

LI 

The human understanding is of its own nature 
prone to abstractions and gives a substance and 
reality to things which are fleeting 

LV 
There is one principal and as it were radical dis- 
tinction between different minds, in respect of 
philosophy and the sciences; which is this: that 
some minds are stronger and apter to mark the dif- 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science 45 

ferences of things, others to mark their resem- 
blances. The steady and acute mind can fix its con- 
templations and dwell and fasten on the subtlest dis- 
tinctions: the lofty and discursive mind recognizes 
and puts together the finest and most general resem- 
blances. Both kinds however easily err in excess, 
by catching the one at gradations the other at 
shadows. 

LVI 
There are found some minds given to an extreme 
admiration of antiquity, others to an extreme love 
and appetite for novelty; but few so duly tempered 
that they can hold the mean, neither carping at what 
is well laid down by the ancients, nor despising 
what is well introduced by the moderns. This how- 
ever turns to the great injury of the sciences and 
philosophy ; since these affectations of antiquity and 
novelty are the humours of partisans rather than 
judgments; and truth is to be sought for not in 
the felicity of any age, which is an unstable thing, 
but in the light of nature and experience, which is 
eternal. These factions therefore must be abjured, 
and care must be taken that the intellect be not 
hurried by them into assent. 

LIX 

. . . For men believe that their reason governs 
words; but it is also true that words react on the 
understanding; and this it is that has rendered 
philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. 
Now words, being commonly framed and applied ac- 
cording to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those 



46 Readings in Philosophy 

lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar 
understanding. And whenever an understanding of 
greater acuteness or a more diligent observation 
would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of 
nature, words stand in the way and resist the 
change. Whence it comes to pass that the high 
and formal discussions of learned men end often- 
times in disputes about words and names; with 
which (according to the use and wisdom of the 
mathematicians) it would be more prudent to begin, 
and so by means of definitions reduce them to order. 
Yet even definitions cannot cure this evil in dealing 
with natural and material things; since the defini- 
tions themselves consist of words, and those words 
beget others: so that it is necessary to recur to 
individual instances, and those in due series and 
order; as I shall say presently when I come to the 
method and scheme for the formation of notions and 
axioms. 

LX 

The idols imposed by words on the understanding 
are of two kinds. They are either names of things 
which do not exist (for as there are things left un- 
named through lack of observation, so likewise are 
there names which result from fantastic supposi- 
tions and to which nothing in reality corresponds) , 
or they are names of things which exist, but yet con- 
fused and ill-defined, and hastily and irregularly 
derived from realities. 

XCVIII 

Now for grounds of experience — since to expe- 
rience we must come — we have as yet had either 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science 47 

none or very weak ones; no search has been made 
to collect a store of particular observations sufficient 
either in number, or in kind, or- in certainty, to in- 
form the understanding-, or in any way adequate. 
On the contrary, men of learning, but easy withal 
and idle, have taken for the construction or for the 
confirmation of their philosophy certain rumours 
and vague fames or airs of experience, and allowed 
to these the weight of lawful evidence. And just 
as if some kingdom or state were to direct its coun- 
sels and affairs, not by letters and reports from am- 
bassadors and trustworthy messengers, but by the 
gossip of the streets ; such exactly is the system of 
management introduced into philosophy with rela- 
tion to experience. Nothing duly investigated, 
nothing verified, nothing counted, weighed, or meas- 
ured, is to be found in natural history: and what 
in observation is loose and vague, is in information 

deceptive and treacherous 

Good hopes may therefore be conceived of natural 
philosophy, when natural history, which is the basis 
and foundation of it, has been drawn up on a better 
plan; but not till then. 

CIV 
The understanding must not however be allowed 
to jump and fly from particulars to remote axioms 
and of almost the highest generality (such as the 
first principles, as they are called, of arts and 
things), and taking stand upon them as truths that 
cannot be shaken, proceed to prove and frame the 
middle axioms by reference to them ; which has been 
the practice hitherto; the understanding being not 



48 Readings in Philosophy 

only carried that way by a natural impulse, but also 
by the use of syllogistic demonstration trained and 
inured to it. But then, and then only, may we hope 
well of the sciences, when in a just scale of ascent, 
and by successive steps not interrupted or broken, 
we rise from particulars to lesser axioms; and then 
to middle axioms, one above the other; and last of 
all to the most general. For the lowest axioms 
differ but slightly from bare experience, while the 
highest and most general (which we now have) are 
notional and abstract and without solidity. But the 
middle are the true and solid and living axioms, on 
which depend the affairs and fortunes of men ; and 
above them again, last of all, those which are indeed 
the most general ; such I mean as are not abstract, 
but of which those intermediate axioms are really 
limitations. 

The understanding must not therefore be supplied 
with wings, but rather hung with weights, to keep 
it from leaping and flying. 

B. Early Greek Philosophy 

The following passages constitute some of the 
principal sources of our knowledge of the theories 
of the early Greek philosophers : 

Thales: Most^ of the very early philosophers 
thought the material principle of things was the 
only one. For that of which things are composed. 



^ Translated from Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 
1. Thales. 

(Letters and numbers correspond to designation in that 
work) . 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science 49 

out of which at first they arise, and into which 
they finally pass away, the Reality enduring though 
changing in attributes, — this they say is the sub- 
stance and first principle of things. And for this 
reason they think that nothing really either comes 
into being or is destroyed, since there is a substance 
of this kind which is always conserved. . . . 
For there must be some natural substance, whether 
one or more than one, out of which all things arise, 
being itself everlasting. But as to the number and 
the nature of such principles all do not say the same 
thing. Thales, the founder of this kind of philoso- 
phy, says it is water; (therefore, also, he represented 
the earth as floating upon water), deriving this 
suggestion perhaps from seeing that the nourish- 
ment of all things is moist, that even heat is derived 
from and sustained by it, (and that out of which a 
thing comes is its first principle) . He derived the 
suggestion from this and also from the fact that the 
seed of all living things is moist in character, and 
water is the first principle of what is moist. (A 12.) 
Thales thought all things were full of 
gods. (A 22.) 

Thales said the mind of the universe is God, and 
that everything is alive and full of divine powers. 
(A 23.) 

It appears that Thales, from the accounts given 
of him, supposed the soul to be a cause of motion, 
if indeed he said the lodestone had a soul because 
it moved iron. (A 22.) 

Thales said the stars were made of earth, but 
fiery hot. (A 17a). 



50 Readings in Philosophy 

They say that Thales first proved that the circle is 
bisected by the diameter. . . . He is said first 
to have noted and said that in every isosceles tri- 
angle the angles next to the base are equal. . . . 
He also proved this theorem : that when two straight 
lines intersect the vertical angles are equal. (A 20.) 

Anaximander : This^ man said the first principle 
and elemental substance was the 'boundless', not 
defining it as air or water or any other specific thing. 
The parts of it change place, but the whole is un- 
changeable. The earth stands in the middle of 
things, holding the central position and having the 
form of a sphere. The moon shines by reflected 
light and is illuminated by the sun. The sun is no 
smaller than the earth, and is of the purest fire (1). 

Of those who spoke of one moving and boundless 
substance Anaximander, son of Praxiades, of Mile- 
tus, who had been a pupil and successor of Thales, 
said the first principle and elemental substance was 
'the boundless', being the first one to give this name 
to the first principle. He says it is neither water 
nor any other of the so-called elements, but a differ- 
ent kind of substance — ^indeterminate — ^from which 
all the heavens and the worlds within them origi- 
nated. And into that from which things have their 
origin do they also return in accordance with neces- 
sity; for they make amends and give satisfaction 
for wrong to each other in the course of time ; — 
speaking thus in rather poetic terms. (9). 



^ Ibid., 2, Anaximander. 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science 51 

He says the earth is cylindrical in form, and that 
its depth is one third of its breadth. . . . Fur- 
ther, he says that man was produced in the begin- 
ning from an animal of a different form; arguing 
from the fact that all others quickly come to sup- 
port themselves, but man alone needs nursing for 
a long time; wherefore in the beginning if he had 
been of this kind he would not have survived. (10) . 

i 
Anaximenes: Anaximenes,^ son of Eurystratus, 

of Miletus, . . . represented the fundamental 

principle of all things as air ; for from this all things 

come, and into it again they are dissolved. "As our 

soul", says he, "which is air holds us together, so 

breath and air surround the whole universe". 

(B2). 

Anaximenes . . . said the boundless air was 

the first principle from which come all things that 

are, that have been, and that will be, even gods and 

divinities ; and all other things are the offspring of 

this. The nature of the air is as follows : when it 

is in its ordinary condition it is invisible, but is 

revealed by its coldness or warmth or wetness or 

motion; and it is always moving, for it could not 

bring about the changes which it does if it did not 

move. . . . The stars arose out of the earth, 

from the moisture arising from it, which becoming 

rare develops into fire, and from the fire floating on 

high the stars were composed. (A 7). 



^ Ibid., 3. Anaximenes. 



52 Readings in Philosophy 

Anaximenes . . . , like his predecessor, says 
the underlying substance is boundless, yet not — as 
he had said — undetermined, but of a definite kind, 
namely air; and it varies in different substances 
through rarity and density. When it becomes 
rarer it is fire, denser wind, then cloud, and when 
still more — water, then earth, then stones. All 
other things are composed of these. And he also 
regards as eternal the motion through which change 
occurs. (A 5). 

Upon contraction of the air, he says, the earth 
first came into existence, being quite flat, hence it 
was readily borne upon the air ; and the sun and the 
moon and the other heavenly bodies had their source 
in the earth. Therefore he declares that the sun is 
made of earth, but because of its swift motion it has 
acquired its very high temperature. (A 6). 

Heraclitus : The^ opposed agree ; out of different 
tones comes the most beautiful harmony; and all 
things arise through strife. (B 8). 

War is the father of all things, and king of all; 
some it made gods and others men, some slave, some 
free. (B 53). 

This world, the same for all, no god or man 
created; but it always was, and is, and will be, an 
everliving fire, being kindled and quenched in cer- 
tain degrees. (B 30). 

The transformations of fire are : first sea ; of the 
sea one-half earth, half hurricane. . . . The sea is 
spread round and measured in accordance with the 



^ Ibid., 12. Herakleitos. 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science 53 

same Reason which was before the earth was, 
(B 31). 

The one, which alone is wise, will and will not be 
called by the name of Zeus. (B 32), 

The stupid, when they hear, are like the deaf; 
the saying fits them — 'though present they are ab- 
sent'. (B34). 

Into the same river we step and do not step, we 
go and do not go, (B 49a), 

To those who go into the same river ever new 
water is flowing. (B 12), 

God is day, night; winter, summer; war, peace; 
surfeit, famine; and he changes as fire does; when 
it is mingled with spices it is given the name of 
the fragrance of each. (B 67) , 

They are at variance with the Reason which dis- 
poses all and with which they are most constantly 
in converse; and the things with which they meet 
from day to day appear strange to them. (B 72). 

One ought to know that war is universal ; justice 
is strife; and all things occur through strife and 
necessity. (B 80). 

Those who speak with intelligence must arm 
themselves with that which is the common posses- 
sion of all, as the city with law, — and even more 
strongly; for human laws are sustained by the one 
divine law ; it has as much power as it pleases ; it 
suffices for and overcomes all. (B 114). 

Xenophanes : There^ is one God, greatest among 
gods and men, like mortals in neither body nor mind. 
(B 23). 



' Ibid., 11. Xenophanes. 

.5 



54 Readings in Philosophy 

Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all 
things which among men are a reproach and shame, 
— stealing, adultery, and deceiving one another. 
(B 11). 

But if oxen and horses or lions had hands and 
could draw and produce works such as men do, 
horses would have depicted the forms of gods like 
horses, oxen like oxen, and each would have given 
them bodies in form such as they themselves had. 
(B 15). 

The Ethiopians say their gods are flat-nosed and 
black, the Thracians that theirs are blue-eyed and 
red-haired. (B 16). 

The whole of Him sees, the whole of Him thinks, 
and the whole of Him hears. (B 24). 

Without effort he controls all things by the power 
of his mind. (B 25). 

Ever in the same place He remains unmoving; 
nor is it fitting for Him to move now hither now 
thither. (B 26). 

Mortals think that gods are born, and have cloth- 
ing, voice, and body like theirs. (B 14). 

Not from the beginning have the gods revealed 
all things to mortals, but in time by seeking they 
learn better. (B 18). 

Xenophanes said that those who assert that the 
gods were born are as irreverent as those who say 
they die; for in either case at some time the gods 
do not exist. (A 12). 

Xenophanes, the first of these monists (for Par- 
menides is said to have been a pupil of his), said 
nothing clearly, nor does he seem to have seized 



Differentkitioii of PhUosopluj and Science 55 

upon any one thing as "nature", but looking up at 
the whole heaven said the One is God. (A 30). 

Parmenides : 

Never' I ween shalt thou learn that Being can be 
of what is not; 

Wherefore do thou withdraw thy mind from this 
path of inquiry, 

Neither let habit compel thee, while treading this 
pathway of knowledge, 

Still to employ a visionless eye or an ear full of 
ringing. 

Yea, or a clamorous tongue; but prove this vexed 
demonstration 

Uttered by me, by reason. And now there remains 
for discussion 

One path only : That Being both be — and on it 
there are tokens 

Many and many to show that what is is birthless 
and deathless, 

Whole and only-begotten, and moveless and ever- 
enduring: 

Never it was or shall be; but the ALL simultane- 
ously now is, 

One continuous one ; for of it what birth shalt thou 
search for? 

How and whence it hath sprung? I shall not per- 
mit thee to tell me. 

Neither to think : 'Of what is not,' for none can 
say or imagine 



' Translation of Thomas Davidson, Journal of Speculative 
Philosophy, Vol. IV, 1870, pp. 5, 6. 



56 ' Readings in Philosophy 

How Not-Is becomes Is ; or else what need should 
have stirred it, 

After or yet before its beginning, to issue from 
nothing? 

Thus either wholly Being must be or wholly must 
not be. 

Never from that which is will the force of Intelli- 
gence suffer 

Aught to become beyond being itself. Thence 
neither production 

Neither destruction doth Justice permit, ne'er 
slackening her fetters ; 

But she forbids. And herein is contained the de- 
cision of these things ; 

Either there is or is not; but Judgment declares, as 
it needs must. 

One of these paths to be uncomprehended and utterly 
nameless. 

No true pathway at all, but the other to,be and be 
real. 

How can that which is now be hereafter, or how can 
it have been? 

For if it hath been before, or shall be hereafter, it 
is not: 

Thus generation is quenched and decay surpasseth 
believing. 

Nor is there aught of distinct ; for the ALL is self- 
similar alway. 

Nor is there anywhere more to debar it from being 
unbroken ; 

Nor is there anywhere less, for All is sated with 
Being; 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science 57 

Wherefore the All is unbroken, and Being ap- 

proacheth to Being. 
Moveless, moreover, and bounded by great chains' 

limits it lieth, 
Void of beginning, without any ceasing, since birth 

and destruction 
Both have wandered afar, driven forth by the truth 

of conviction. 
Same in the same and abiding, and self through 

itself it reposes. 
Steadfast thus it endureth, for mighty Necessity 

holds it — • 
Holds it within the chains of her bounds and round 

doth secure it. 
Wherefore that that which IS should be infinite is 

not permitted ; 
For it is lacking in naught, or else it were lacking 

in all things. 

Zeno, the Eleatic: There^ are four sayings of 
Zeno about motion which present difficulties to those 
who would solve them. First, the one to the eff'ect 
that a thing can not move, because it must traverse 
half the distance before it traverses all. . . . 
The second is the so-called "Achilles". This is that 
the slowest runner will never be overtaken by the 
swiftest; for the pursuer must first come to where 
the one pursued set out, so that the slower must 
always be somewhat in advance. . . . The third 
is the one now styled "The Flying Arrow Rests". 
It results from the assumption that time is com- 



Diels, Op. at., 19. Zeno. 



58 Readings m Philoso'phy 

posed of instants. . . . For, he says, if every- 
thing is either at rest or in motion, and is not mov- 
ing when it is at a certain point, (and that which is 
moving is at a point at every instant) , then the fly- 
ing arrow is motionless. . . . The fourth is the 
one regarding the equal masses moving in a course 
in opposite directions side by side, some from the 
end of the course, and some from the middle, with 
equal speed ; in which case he thinks half the time is 
equal to double it. (A 25-28). 

Having presumed that if the real had no size it 
would not exist, he continues : but if it exists, each 
part of it must have some size, and thickness, and 
one part be at some distance from another. And 
the same statement is true of the part next smaller 
than it. For it too will have size, and will have a 
next smaller part. But to say this once is as good 
as to endlessly repeat it; for no such part of it will 
be ultimate, nor will there ever be one which is not 
related to another. So if there are many things, 
they must be both small and large, so small as to 
have no size, and so large as to be infinite. (B 1) . 

"Tell me, Protagoras," said he, "Does one grain 
or a ten thousandth part of a grain make a sound 
when it falls?" When he said that it does not, "But 
does a bushel of grain make a sound when it falls, 
or not?" When he said that the bushel did make a 
sound, "How then !" said Zeno, "Is; not the ratio of 
the bushel of grain to the one the same as that of 
the one to the ten thousandth part?" And when he 
said it was, "Why, then," said Zeno, "will not the 
ratio of the sounds be the same to each other? For 
as are the sounding bodies so are the sounds ; but if 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science 59 

this is so, and if the bushel of grain makes a sound 
the one grain will also make a sound; and likewise 
the ten thousandth part of a grain". (A 29). 

Empedocles : Of a twofold process will I speak ; at 
one time one single substance came to be out of many, 
again at another several out of one. Twofold is the 
origin of mortal things, and twofold their cessation. 
In the one case the union of elements begets and de- 
stroys things ; in the other the product of the scatter- 
ing of elements is again scattered. And these things 
never cease alternating, at one time all things com- 
ing together through Love, at another again being 
borne apart through the hatred of Strife. Since 
one is accustomed to come out of many, and again 
many come out of one by its separation, things are 
always arising and their duration proves not last- 
ing; but since they never cease alternating contin- 
uously, they are forever unmoved from their cycle. 
. . . At one time there came to be one thing only 
out of many, and then again many came out of one, 
fire and water and earth and the boundless height of 
air, and destructive Strife beside them equal in 
weight everywhere, and Love among them, equal in 
length and in breadth ; ... all these elements 
are equal and the same in birth ; each holds a differ- 
ent office; each has its own character; and each in 
turn rules as time rolls on. Nothing comes into be- 
ing in addition to these, nor does anything perish 
from them ; for if they continually perished they 
would not exist any longer; and what could be added 
to the whole, and whence could it come? And how 



' Ibid., 21. Empedokles. 



60 Readings in Philosophy 

could it perish, since there is nothing beside these? 
These alone exist, and as they course among each 
other now one thing now another arises, and the 
like goes on always forever, (B 17) . 

Anaxagoras : All^ things were together, infinite 
in multitude and in smallness ; . . . and while 
all things were together nothing was manifest, — 
because of its smallness; for air and ether, both 
boundless, surrounded all things, f(5r these are pre- 
ponderant in all things, both in multitude and in 
size. (B 1). 

Air and ether were generated out of the vast sur- 
rounding mass ; and the surrounding mass is in- 
finite in quanity. (B 2). 

. . . One must believe that many things, of 
varied kinds, are in all worlds ; and the 'seeds' of all 
things, having all kinds of forms, colors and flavors. 
Men and all other animals which have life have been 
composed out of these. And the men possess in- 
habited cities and tilled lands as with us, and have 
a sun and moon and the other bodies as we ; and the 
earth produces many things of varied kinds, the 
most useful of which they gather into their abodes 
and use. . , . But before these things were dif- 
ferentiated, while all were together no color was 
manifest, for the mixture of all things prevented ; — 
the wet and the dry, the warm and the cold, the light 
and the dark, with much earth therein and seeds in- 
finite in quantity, in no respect like one another. 
(B4). 



"■■Ibid., 46. Anaxag'oras. 



Differentiation of Philosophy and Science Gl 

In everything a portion of everything — except 
mind — is contained ; but in some there is mind also. 
(B 11). 

Mind is boundless, and self-determining, and 
mixed with nothing, but exists by itself alone. For 
if it were not by itself, but had been mixed with 
something else it would have shared in all things. 
. . . And that which was mixed with it would 
have hindered it from controlling anything so well 
as when it exists alone by itself. For it is the most 
subtle of all things, and the purest, and understands 
all things, and has the greatest power. All things, 
great and small, which have life, — mind directs 
them. And mind ruled all the revolution, so that 
it began to revolve in the beginning. (B 12). 



CHAPTER IV 

ATOMISTIC MATERIALISM 

A. Leukippus and Democritus 

Early Greek atomism is represented by the follow- 
ing extracts from the works of Leukippus and 
Democritus, and from early writers' accounts of 
them : 

Leukippus : Nothing-' arises by chance, but all 
things from reason and by necessity. (B 2). 

Leukippus and his companion Democritus say 
that the elements are the plenum and the void, call- 
ing the one being and the other non-being, — of the 
two that which is full and solid is being, that which 
is empty and tenuous is non-being, (wherefore the 
real exists no more than the unreal, they say, be- 
cause empty space exists no less than solid bodies) ; 
and these are the fundamental principles of things, 
the material of which they are made. And as those 
who consider the fundamental reality as One account 
for all other things by changes in. the condition of 
this, positing rarefaction and condensation as the 
causes of these changes of condition, — in the same 
way these men say differences in the elements are 
the causes of other things. Now these differences, 
they say, are three, — form, order and position ; for 
they maintain that the real differs in shape, in ar- 



^ Ibid., 54. Leukippos. 

(62) 



Atomistic Materialism 63 

rangement and in situation only. A differs from 
N in form; AN from NA in order; I from H in 
position. As for motion whence or how it happens 
to thing's they, as others, lightly dismiss it. ( A 6) . 

Leukippus, the Eleatic or Milesian (he is classified 
under both headings), though he had been of like 
opinion with Parmenides in philosophy, did not hold 
the same view as Parmenides and Xenophanes re- 
garding the real, but the opposite as it seems. . . . 
He posited the atoms as countless and ever mov- 
ing elements, and the multitude of forms among 
them as infinite (because there was no more reason 
for their being of one kind than of another), hold- 
ing also that origination and change are incessant 
among real things. Furthermore, he held that "be- 
ing" exists no more than "non-being", and that both 
principles are involved in things which change. 
Conceiving the essence of the atoms as compact and 
full, he said they were "being" and were suspended 
Jn the void, which he called "non-being". (A 8), 

He says the universe is infinite in extent, . . . 
and a part of it is solid, part empty space. These 
are the elements. And there are countless worlds 
arising out of these, and into them they are dis- 
solved. And the origin of worlds is as follows : 
many bodies, of various forms, becoming separated 
from the infinite are borne into the great void, and 
they having gathered together form a single vortex, 
in which striking against each other and circling 
around in all possible ways, like parts are gathered 
to like. When bodies of equal weight no longer are 
able to move about on account of their number the 
small ones withdraw to the outer void, darting out 



64 Readings in Philosophy 

as it were. But the rest remain together and be- 
coming intertwined unite with each other and form 
a kind of spherical system. (A 1). 

Democritus : Democritus^ thinks the nature of the 
eternal principles to be small units of matter, in- 
finite in number; and around these he conceives a 
region infinite in magnitude. He describes this re- 
gion in the term^ "empty", "nothing", and "the in- 
finite", and each of the units of matter as "some- 
thing", "solid", "real". He thinks these units are so 
small that they escape our perception. And they have 
all kinds of forms and all possible shapes and differ- 
ences in size. From these, then, as elements, he 
conceives visible and perceptible masses to be origi- 
nated and compounded. They separate off and are 
carried about in the void because of their dissimi- 
larities and other differences mentioned. As they 
are carried about they strike one another, and are 
involved in an intricate arrangement, which causes- 
them to draw near and come into contact with each 
other; but does not in fact transform them into a 
single nature ; for it is absolutely foolish to say that 
'duality' or 'plurality' would become 'unity'. The 
mingling of the bodies with each other for some 
time brings about the interchange and exchange of 
particles; for some of them are irregular, some 
hooked, some hollow, some curved; some have in- 
numerable differences. He thinks they cling to each 
other for a time and remain together, until some 
more powerful force from the surrounding region 



' Ibid., 55. Demokritos. 



Atomistic Materialism 65 

coming up disturbs them and scatters them apart. 
And he asserts this mode of origination and the op- 
posed annihilation not only of animals but also of 
plants and worlds and in short of all perceptible 
bodies. If then origination is collection of atoms 
and destruction their scattering, according to De- 
mocritus origination would be merely change. 
(A 37). 

(The soul) has appeared to some to be fire; for 
this is the most subtle and most nearly immaterial 
of the elements, and besides it moves and moves 
other things very readily. Democritus has adduced 
the most critical arguments as to why both of these 
facts are so. For soul is the same as mind. And 
this is one of the most elemental and irreducible of 
bodies, and mobile because of the smallness of its 
parts, and because of its form. And he says that 
the most mobile of forms is the spherical; and of 
this form are mind and fire. (A 101). 

Man must know . . . that he is remote from 
the truth. (B 6). 

This account shows that we know nothing in 
truth about anything; but each one's opinion is im- 
pression. (B 7). 

And yet it will be clear that it is difficult to know 
how each thing really is. (B 8). 

We perceive nothing certainly in reality, but only 
as a transitory thing according to the condition of 
the body and the inflowing and reacting influences. 
(B9). 

There are two forms of knowledge, one legitimate, 
the other illegitimate ; illegitimate are all the follow- 



66 Readings in Philosophy 

ing: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The gen- 
uine is quite distinct from these. When the illegiti- 
mate can no more see nor hear nor smell nor taste 
nor perceive by touch because of the minuteness of 
its object, and it is necessary to search into the more 
subtle, then comes the legitimate which has a more 
subtle organ of knowledge. (B 11). 

By convention there is color; by convention sweet- 
ness; by convention bitterness; but in reality atoms 
aad the void. (B 125). 

Tranquillity comes to men through moderation in 
enjoyment and through symmetry of life. But de- 
ficiency and superfluity are prone to change into 
each other and cause great commotions in the soul. 
But those souls which are stirred by great changes 
are neither stable nor tranquil. One must then keep 
his mind upon the possible and be satisfied with 
what is at hand, with little regard for the things 
that are commonly envied and admired, not pursu- 
ing them in thought. One must consider the lives 
of the distressed, bearing clearly in mind what they 
suffer, in order that the present and what already 
belongs to one may appear great and enviable, and 
it may not be the lot of one's soul to suffer ill 
through desiring something more. For he who 
admires those who have possessions and those who 
are considered happy by men and who in mind chase 
after them every hour are forced continually to con- 
trive new schemes and to conceive the desire to com- 
mit some irreparable deed which the laws forbid. 
Wherefore one ought not to seek these things, but be 
satisfied with one's own possessions, comparing his 
life with that of those who are faring worse and 



Atomistic Materialism 67 

consider himself happy, bearing in mind what they 
are suffering and how much better than they he is 
faring and living. Keeping to this state of mind 
you will ward off not a few calamities, envy, jealousy 
and ill will. (B 191). 

B. Epicurus 

Atomistic materialism of the fourth century B. C. 
is represented by the following account of the phil- 
osophy of Epicurus. 

The direct quotations are from the letter of 
Epicurus to Herodotus. Parentheses contain com- 
ments of Diogenes. 

"First^ of all, we must admit that nothing can 
come of that which does not exist ; for, were the fact 
otherwise, then everything would be produced from 
everything, and there would be no need of any seed. 
And if that which disappeared were so absolutely 
destroyed as to become non-existent, then every 
thing would soon perish, as the things with which 
they would be dissolved would have no existence. 
But, in truth, the universal whole always was such, 
as it now is, and always will be such. For there is 
nothing into which it can change ; for there is noth- 
ing beyond this universal whole which can penetrate 
into it, and produce any change in it". 

(And Epicurus establishes the same principles at 
the beginning of the great Abridgment; and in the 
first book of his treatise on Nature.) "Now the uni- 



^ Diogenes Laertius : The Lives and Opinioyis of Eminent 
Philosophers, Book X, The Life of Epicurus; pages 438-441; 
translated by C. D. Yonge, 1853. 



68 ■ Readings in Philosophy 

versal whole is a body; for our senses bear us 
witness in every case that bodies have a real exist- 
ence ; and the evidence of the senses, as I have said 
before, ought to be the rule of our reasoning about 
everything which is not directly perceived. Other- 
wise, if that which we call the vacuum, or space, or 
intangible nature, had not a real existence, there 
would be nothing in which the bodies could be con- 
tained, or across which they could move, as we see 
that they really do move. Let us add to this reflec- 
tion that one cannot conceive, either in virtue of 
perception, or of any analogy founded on perception, 
any general quality peculiar to all beings which is 
not either an attribute, or an accident of the body, 
or of the vacuum." 

(The same principles are laid down in the first, 
and fourteenth, and fifteenth book of the Treatise 
on Nature; and also in the Great Abridgment.) 

"Now, of bodies, some are combinations, and 
some the elements out of which these combinations 
are formed. These last are indivisible, and pro- 
tected from every kind of transformation ; otherwise 
everything would be resolved into non-existence. 
They exist by their own force, in the midst of the 
dissolution of the combined bodies, being absolutely 
full, and as such offering no handle for destruction 
to take hold of. It follows, therefore, as a matter 
of absolute necessity, that the principles of things 
must be corporeal, indivisible elements. 

"The universe is infinite. For that which is finite 
has an extreme, and that which has an extreme is 
looked at in relation to something else. Conse- 
quently, that which has not an extreme, has no 



Atomistic Materialism 69 

boundary; and if it has no boundary, it must be 
infinite, and not terminated by any limit. The uni- 
verse then is infinite, both with reference to the 
quantity of bodies of which it is made up, and to 
the magnitude of the vacuum; for if the vacuum 
were infinite, the bodies being finite, then, the bodies 
would not be able to rest in any place ; they would be 
transported about, scattered across the infinite 
vacuum for want of any power to steady themselves, 
or to keep one another in their places by mutual 
repulsion. If, on the other hand, the vacuum were 
finite, the bodies being infinite, then the bodies 
clearly could never be contained in the vacuum. 

"Again : the atoms which form the bodies, these 
full elements from which the combined bodies come, 
and into which they resolve themselves, assume an 
incalculable variety of forms, for the numerous dif- 
ferences which the bodies present cannot possibly 
result from an aggregate of the same forms. Each 
variety of forms contains an infinity of atoms, but 
there is not for that reason an infinity of atoms ; it 
is only the number of them which is beyond cal- 
culation." 

(Epicurus adds, a little lower down, that divisi- 
bility, ad infinitum, is impossible; for, says he, the 
only things which change are the qualities; unless, 
indeed, one wishes to proceed from division to divi- 
sion, till one arrives absolutely at infinite littleness.) 

"The atoms are in a continual state of motion". 

(He says, farther on, that they move with an 
equal rapidity from all eternity, since the vacuum 
offers no more resistance to the lightest than it does 
to the heaviest.) 



70 Readingfi in Philosojjhy 

"Among the atoms, some are separated by great 
distances, others come very near to one another 
in the formation of combined bodies, or at times are 
enveloped by others which are combining; but in 
this latter case they, nevertheless, preserve their 
own peculiar motion, thanks to the nature of the 
vacuum, which separates the one from the other, 
and yet offers them no resistance. The solidity 
which they possess causes them, while knocking 
against one another, to react the one upon the other ; 
till at last the repeated shocks bring on the dissolu- 
tion of the combined body ; and for all this there is 
no external cause, the atoms and the vacuum being 
the only causes." 

(He says, farther on, that the atoms have no 
peculiar quality of their own, except from magni- 
tude and weight. As to color, he says in the twelfth 
book of his Principia, that it varies according to 
the position of the atoms. Moreover, he does not 
attribute to the atoms any kind of dimensions ; and, 
accordingly, no atom has ever been perceived by the 
senses ; but this expression, if people only recollect 
what is here said, will by itself offer to the thoughts 
a sufficient image of the nature of things.) 

"But, again, the worlds also are infinite, whether 
they resemble this one of ours or whether they are 
different from it. For, as the atoms are, as to their 
number, infinite, as I have proved above, they neces- 
sarily move about at immense distances ; for besides, 
this infinite multitude of atoms, of which the world 
is formed, or by which it is produced, could not be 
entirely absorbed by one single world, nor even by 



Atomistic Materialism 71 

any worlds, the number of which was limited, 
whether we suppose them like this world of ours, 
or different from it. There is, therefore, no fact 
inconsistent with an infinity of worlds. 

"Moreover, there are images resembling, as far 
as their form goes, the solid bodies which we see, 
but which differ materially from them in the thin- 
ness of their substance. In fact it is not impossible 
but that there may be in space some secretions of 
this kind, and an aptitude to form surfaces without 
depth, and of an extreme thinness ; or else that from 
the solids there may emanate some particles which 
preserve the connection, the disposition, and the 
motion which they had in the body. I give the name 
of images to these representations ; and, indeed, their 
movement through the vacuum taking place, with- 
out meeting any obstacle or hindrance, perfects all 
imaginable extent in an inconceivable moment of 
time; for it is the meeting of obstacles, or the ab- 
sence of obstacles, which produces the rapidity or 
slowness of their motion. At all events, a body in 
motion does not find itself, 'at any moment imagin- 
able, in two places at the same time; that is quite 
inconceivable. From whatever point of infinity it 
arrives at some appreciable moment, and whatever 
may be the spot in its course in which we perceive 
its motion, it has evidently quitted that spot at the 
moment of our thought; for this motion which, as 
we have admitted up to this point, encounters no 
obstacle to its rapidity, is wholly in the same con- 
dition as that the rapidity of which is diipinished 
by the shock of some resistance. 



72 Readings in Philosophy 

C. Atomism in Roman Thought 

The following is a typical passage from the fam- 
ous poem of Lucretius, the Latin writer of the first 
century B, C. : 

Now' seeds in downward motion must decline, 

Though very little from th' exactest line: 

For did they still move straight, they needs must 

fall, 
Like drops of rain, dissolved and scattered all ; 
Forever tumbling through the mighty space. 
And never join to make one single mass. 
If any one believes, the heavier seed. 
In downright motions, and from hindrance freed, 
May strike the lighter; and fit motions make, 
Whence things may rise, how great is the mistake ! 
'Tis true when weights descend through yielding 

air, 
Or streams ; the swiftness of the fall must bear 
Proportion to the weights; and reason good; 
Because the fleeting air, and yielding flood 
With equal strength resist not every course. 
But sooner yield unto the greater force: 
But now no void can stop, no space can stay 
The seeds; for 'tis its nature to give way; 
Therefore through void unequal weights must be 
Like swift in mo-tion, all of like degree. 
Nor can the heavier bodies overtake 
The lighter falling seeds; and, striking, make 
The motions various, fit for nature's use. 



' Titus Lucretius Carus: On the Nature of Things, Book 
II, lines 210-239; translated by Thomas Creech, 1793. 



Atomistic Materialism 73 

By which all pow'rful she may things produce. 
'Tis certain then and plain, that seeds decline, 
Though very little from th' exactest line. 
But not obliquely move : that fond pretense 
Would fight all reason, nay, ev'n common sense : 
For ev'ry body sees, a falling weight 
Makes its descent by lines direct and straight. 



CHAPTER V 
SKEPTICISM AND SOPHISTRY 

A. The Man Measure Doctrine of Protagoras 

The following statement is Plato's, .given for the 
purpose of criticising it, but it appears to be a very 
lair presentation of the doctrine, and the nearest we 
have to Protagoras, from whom no statement has 
survived : 

Theaet.^ Now he who knows perceives what he 
knows, and, as far as I can see at present, knowledge 
is perception. 

Soc. Bravely said, boy ; that is the way in which 
you should express your opinion. And now, let us 
examine together this conception of yours, and see 
whether it is a true birth or a mere windegg: — You 
say that knowledge is perception? 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. Well, you have delivered yourself of a very- 
important doctrine about knowledge ; it is indeed the 
opinion of Protagoras, who has another way of 
expressing it. Man, he says, is the measure of 
all things, of the existence of things that are, and 
of the non-existence of things that are not : — You 
have read him? 



'Plato, Theaetetus, 151d-157c; from Jowett, B., The Dia- 
logues of Plato, translated into English, 3d edition, 1892 ; 
published by the Macmillan Company; reprinted by permis- 
sion. 

(74) 



Skepticwm and Sophistry 75 

Theat. yes, again and again. 

Soc. Does he not say that things are to you such 
as they appear to you, and to me such as they ap- 
pear to me, and that you and I are men? 

Theaet. Yes, he says so. 

Soc. A wise man is not likely to talk nonsense. 
Let us try to understand him: the same wind is 
blowing, and yet one of us may be cold and the other 
not, or one may be slightly and the other very cold? 

Theaet. Quite true. 

Soc. Now is the wind, regarded not in relation 
to us but absolutely, cold or not; or are we to say, 
with Protagoras, that the wind is cold to him who 
is cold, and not to him who is not? 

Theaet. I suppose the last. 

Soc. Then it must appear so to each of them? 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. And 'appears to him' means the same as 'he 
perceives'. 

Theaet. True. 

Soc. Then appearing and perceiving coincide in 
the case of hot and cold, and in similar instances ; 
for things appear, or may be supposed to be, to each 
one such as he perceives them? 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. Then perception is always of existence, and 
being the same as knowledge is unerring? 

Theaet. Clearly. - 

Soc. In the name of the Graces, what an al- 
mighty wise man Protagoras must have been! He 
spoke these things in a parable to the common herd, 
like you and me, but told the truth, 'his Truth', in 
secret to his own disciples. 



76 Readings in Philosophy 

Theaet. What do you mean, Socrates? 

Soc. I am about to speak of a high argument, in 
which all things are said to be relative; you cannot 
rightly call anything by any name, such as great or 
small, heavy or light, for the great will be small 
and the heavy light — there is no single thing or 
quality, but out of motion and change and admixture 
all things are becoming relatively to one another, 
which 'becoming' is by us incorrectly called being, 
but is really becoming, for nothing ever is, but all 
things are becoming. Summon all philosophers — 
Protagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and the rest of 
them, one after another, and with the exception of 
Parmenides they will agree with you in this. Sum- 
mon the great masters of either kind of poetry — 
Epicharmus, the prince of Comedy, and Homer of 
Tragedy; when the latter sings of 
'Ocean whence sprang the gods, and mother Tethys,' 
does he not mean that all things are the offspring 
of flux and motion? 

Theaet. I think so. 

Soc. And who could take up arms against such 
a great army having Homer for its general, and not 
appear ridiculous? 

Theaet. Who indeed, Socrates? 

Soc. Yes, Theaetetus; and there are plenty of 
other proofs which will show that motion is the 
source of what is called being and becoming, and 
inactivity of not-being and destruction ; for fire and 
warmth, which are supposed to be the parent and 
guardian of all other things, are born of movement 
and of friction, which is a kind of motion ; — is not 
this the origin of fire? 



Skepticism and Sophistry 77 

Theaet. It is. 

Soc. And the race of animals is generated in the 
same way? 

Theaet. Certainly. 

Soc. And is not the bodily habit spoiled by rest 
and idleness, but preseryed for a long time by mo- 
tion and exercise? 

Theaet. True. 

Soc. And what of the mental habit ?^ Is not the 
soul informed, and improved, and preserved by 
study and attention, which are motions; but when 
at rest, which in the soul only means want of at- 
tention and study, is uninformed, and speedily for- 
gets whatever she has learned? 

Theaet. True. 

Soc. Then motion is a good, and rest an evil, to 
the soul as well as to the body? 

Theaet. Clearly. 

Soc. I may add, that breathless calm, stillness 
and the like waste and impair, while wind and 
storm preserve; and the palmary argument of all, 
which I strongly urge, is the golden chain in Homer, 
by which he means the sun, thereby indicating that 
so long as the sun and heavens go round in their 
orbits, all things human and divine are and are 
preserved, but if they were chained up and their 
motions ceased, then all things would be destroyed, 
and, as the saying is, turned upside down. 

Theaet. I believe, Socrates, that you have truly 
explained his meaning. 

Soc. Then now apply his doctrine to perception, 
my good friend, and first of all to vision ; that which 
you call white colour is not in your eyes, and is not 



78 Readings in Philosophy 

SL distinct thing which exists out of them. And 
you must not assign any place to it: for if it had 
position it would be, and be at rest, and there would 
be no process of becoming. 

Theaet. Then what is colour? 

Soc. Let us carry out the principle which has 
just been affirmed, that nothing is self-existent, and 
then we shall see that white, black, and every other 
colour, arises out of the eye meeting the appropriate 
motion, and that what we call a colour is in each 
case neither the active nor the passive element, but 
something which passes between them, and is pe- 
culiar to each percipient; are you quite certain that 
the several colours appear to a dog or to any animal 
whatever as they appear to you ? 

Theaet. Far from it. 

Soc. Or that anything appears the same to you 
as to another man? Are you so profoundly con- 
vinced of this? Rather would it not be true that 
it never appears exactly the same to you, because 
you are never exactly the same? 

Theaet. The latter. 

Soc. And if that with which I compare myself 
in size, or which I apprehend by touch, were great 
or white or hot, it could not become different by 
mere contact with another unless it actually 
changed ; nor again, if the comparing or apprehend- 
ing subject were great or white or hot, could this, 
when unchanged from within, become changed by 
any approximation or affection of any other thing? 
The fact is that in our ordinary way of speaking 
we allow ourselves to be driven into most ridiculous 



Skepticism and Sophistry 79 

and wonderful contradictions, as Protagoras and all 
who take his line of argument would remark. 

Theaet. How? and of what sort do you mean? 

Soc. A little instance will sufficiently explain my 
meaning: Here are six dice, which are more by a 
half when compared with four, and fewer by a half 
than twelve — they are more and also fewer. How 
can you or any one maintain the contrary? 

Theaet. Very true. 

Soc. Well, then, suppose that Protagoras or some 
one asks whether anything can become greater or 
more if not by increasing, how would you answer 
him, Theaetetus? 

Theaet. I should say 'No', Socrates, if I were to 
speak my mind in reference to this last question, 
and if I were not afraid of contradicting my former 
answer. 

Soc. Capital ! excellent ! spoken like an oracle, my 
boy! and if you reply 'Yes', there will be a case for 
Euripides ; for our tongue will be convinced, but not 
our mind. 

Theaet. Very true. 

Soc. The thoroughbred Sophists, who know all 
that can be known about the mind, and argue only 
out of the superfluity of their wits, would have had a 
regular sparring-match over this, and would have 
knocked their arguments together finely. But you 
and I, who have no professional aims, only desire to 
see what is the mutual relation of these principles, 
— whether they are consistent with each other or 
not. 

Theaet. Yes, that would be my desire. 



80 Readijigs in Philosophy 

Soc. And mine too. But since this is our feel- 
ing, and there is plenty of time, why should we not 
calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and 
thoroughly examine and see what these appearances 
in us really are? If I am not mistaken, they will be 
described by us as follows : — first, that nothing can 
become greater or less, either in number or magni- 
tude, while remaining equal to itself — you would 
agree ? 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. Secondly that without addition or subtrac- 
tion there is no increase or diminution of anything, 
but only equality. 

Theat. Quite true. 

Soc. Thirdly, that what was not before cannot 
be afterwards, without becoming and having become. 

Theat. Yes, truly. 

Soc. These three axioms, if I am not mistaken, 
are fighting with one another in our minds in the 
case of the dice, or, again, in such a case as this — 
if I were to say that I, who am of a certain height 
and taller than you, may within a year, without 
gaining or losing in height, be not so tall — not that 
I should have lost, but that you would have in- 
creased. In such a case, I am afterwards what I 
once was not, and yet I have not become ; for I could 
not have become without becoming, neither could I 
have become less without losing somewhat of my 
height; and I could give you ten thousand examples 
of similar contradictions, if we admit them at all. 
I believe that you follow me, Theaetetus ; for I sus- 
pect that you have thought of these questions before 
now. 



Skepticism and Sovhistry 81 

Theaet. Yes, Socrates, and I am amazed when I 
think of them; by the gods I am! and I want to 
know what on earth they mean ; and there are times 
when my head quite swims with the contemplation 
of them. 

Soc. I see, my dear Theaetetus, that Theodorus 
had a true insight into your nature when he said 
that you were a philosopher, for wonder is the feel- 
ing of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in won- 
der. He was not a bad g-enealogist who said that 
Iris (the messenger of heaven) is the child of 
Thaumas (wonder). But do you begin to see what 
is the explanation of this perplexity on the hy- 
pothesis which we attribute to Protagoras? 

Theaet. Not as yet. 

Soc. Then you will be obliged to me if I help you 
to unearth the hidden 'truth' of a famous man or 
school. 

Theaet. To be sure, I shall be very much obliged. 

Soc. Take a look round, then, and see that none 
of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the unini- 
tiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but 
what they can grasp in their hands, and who will 
not allow that action or generation or anything in- 
visible can have real existence. 

Theaet. Yes, indeed, Socrates, they are very hard 
and impenetrable mortals. 

Soc. Yes, my boy, outer barbarians. Far more 
ingenious are the brethren whose mysteries I am 
about to reveal to you. Their first principle is, that 
all is motion, and upon this all the affections of 
which we were just now speaking are supposed to 



82 Readings in Philosophy 

depend : there is nothing but motion, which has two 
forms, one active and the other passive, both in end- 
less number; and out of the union and friction of 
them there is generated a progeny endless in num- 
ber, having two forms, sense and the object of sense, 
which are ever breaking forth and coming to the 
birth at the same moment. The senses are variously 
named hearing, seeing, smelling; there is the sense 
of heat, cold, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, and many 
more which have names, as well as innumerable 
others which are without them ; each has its kindred 
object, — each variety of colour has a corresponding 
variety of sight, and so with sound and hearing, and 
with the rest of the senses and the objects akin to 
them. Do you see, Theaetetus, the bearings of this 
tale on the preceding argument? 

Theaet. Indeed I do not. 

Sac. Then attend, and I will try to finish the 
story. The purport is that all these things are in 
motion, as I was saying, and that this motion is of 
two kinds, a slower and a quicker; and the slower 
elements have their motions in the same place and 
with reference to things near them, and so they be- 
get ; but what is begotten is swifter, for it is carried 
to and fro, and moves from place to place. Apply 
this to sense : — When the eye and the appropriate 
object meet together and give birth to whiteness and 
the sensation connatural with it, which could not 
have been given by either of them going elsewhere, 
then, while the sight is flowing from the eye, white- 
ness proceeds from the object which combines in 
producing the colour; and so the eye is fulfilled with 
sight, and really sees, and becomes, not sight, but a 



Skepticism and Sophistrj/ 83 

seeing eye; and the object which combined to form 
the colour is fulfilled with whiteness, and becomes 
not whiteness but a white thing, whether wood or 
stone or whatever the object may be which happens 
to be coloured white. And this is true of all sensible 
objects, hard, warm, and the like, which are similarly 
to be regarded, as I was saying before, not as having 
any absolute existence, but as being all of them of 
whatever kind generated by motion in their inter- 
course with one another; for of the agent and pa- 
tient, as existing in separation, no trustworthy con- 
ception, as they say, can be formed, for the agent 
has no existence until united with the patient, and 
the patient has no existence until united with the 
agent; and that which by uniting with something 
becomes an agent, by meeting with some other thing 
is converted into a patient. And from all these con- 
siderations, as I said at first, there arises a general 
reflection, that there is no self-existent thing, but 
everj-thing is becoming and in relation ; and being 
must be altogether abolished, although from habit 
and ignorance we are compelled even in this discus- 
sion to retain the use of the term. But the great 
philosophers tell us that we are not to allow either 
the word 'something', or 'belonging to something', or 
'to me', or 'this' or 'that' or any other detaining name 
to be used; in the language of nature all things are 
being created and destroyed, coming into being and 
passing into new forms; nor can any name fix or 
detain them ; he who attempts to fix or detain them 
is easily refuted. And this should be the way of 
speaking, not only of particulars but of aggregates ; 



84 Readings in Philosophy 

such aggregates as are expressed in the word 'man', 
or 'stone', or any name of an animal or of a class. 

B. The Superiority of Persuasion over 
Knowledge 

The statement of this doctrine is also from Plato. 
But like that of the Protagoras it appears to be 
a fair one, and is the most nearly contemporary 
which we possess : 

Gor.^ I like your way of leading us on, Socrates, 
and I will endeavour to reveal to you the whole 
nature of rhetoric. You must have heard, I think, 
that the docks and the walls of the Athenians and 
the plan of the harbour were devised in accordance 
with the counsels, partly of Themistocles, and partly 
of Pericles, and not at the suggestion of the builders. 

Soc. Such is the tradition, Gorgias, about Them- 
istocles; and I myself heard the speech of Pericles 
when he advised us about the middle wall. 

Got. And you will observe, Socrates, that when a 
decision has to be given in such matters the rhetori- 
cians are the advisers; they are the men who win 
their point. 

Sac. I had that in my admiring mind, Gorgias, 
when I asked what is the nature of rhetoric, which 
always appears to me, when I look at the matter in 
this way, to be a marvel of greatness. 

Gor. A marvel, indeed, Socrates, if you only 
knew how rhetoric comprehends and holds under 
her sway all the inferior arts. Let me offer you a 
striking example of this. On several occasions I 



' Plato, Gorgia.^, 455d-459c; Jowett, Op. Cit. 



Skepticism and Sophistry 85 

have been with my brother Herodicus or some other 
physician to see one of his patients, who would not 
alloAv the physician to give him medicine, or apply 
the knife or hot iron to him ; and I have persuaded 
him to do for me what he would not do for the physi- 
cian just by the use of rhetoric. And I say that if a 
rhetorician and a physician were to go to any city, 
and had there to argue in the Ecclesia or any other 
assembly as to which of them should be elected state- 
physician, the physician would have no chance; but 
he who could speak would be chosen if he wished ; 
and in a contest with a man of any other profession 
the rhetorician more than any one would have the 
power of getting himself chosen, for he can speak 
more persuasively to the multitude than any of them, 
and on any subject. Such is the nature and power 
of the art of rhetoric ! And yet, Socrates, rhetoric 
should be used like any other competitive art, not 
against everybody, — the rhetorician ought not to 
abuse his strength any more than a pugilist or pan- 
cratiast or other master of fence ; — because he has 
powers which are more than a match either for 
friend or enemy, he ought not therefore to strike, 
stab, or slay his friends. Suppose a man to have 
been trained in the palestra- and to be a skilful 
boxer, — he in the fulness of his strength goes and 
strikes his father or mother or one of his familiars 
or friends; but that is no reason why the trainers 
or fencing-masters should be held in detestation or 
banished from the city ; — surely not. For they 
taught their art for a good purpose, to be used 
against enemies and evil-doers, in self-defence not in 
aggression, and others have perverted their instruc- 



86 Readings m Philosophy 

tions, and turned to a bad use their 'own strength 
and skill. But not on this account are the teachers 
bad, neither is the art in fault, or bad in itself; I 
should rather say that those who make a bad use 
of the art are to blame. And the same argument 
holds good of rhetoric ; for the rhetorician can speak 
against all men and upon any subject, — in short, he 
can persuade the multitude better than any other 
man of anything which he pleases, but he should not 
therefore seek to defraud the physician or any other 
artist of his reputation merely because he has the 
power; he ought to use rhetoric fairly, as he would 
also use his athletic powers. And if after having 
become a rhetorician he makes a bad use of his 
strength and skill, his instructor surely ought not 
on that account to be held in detestation or banished. 
For he was intended by his teacher to make good 
use of his instructions, but he abuses them. And 
therefore he is the person who ought to be held in 
detestation, banished, and put to death, and not his 
instructor. 

Soc. You, Gorgias, like myself, have had great 
experience of disputations, and you must have ob- 
served, I think, that they do not always terminate 
in mutual edification, or in the definition by either 
party of the subjects which they are discussing; but 
disagreements are apt to arise — somebody says that 
another has not spoken truly or clearly; and then 
they get into a passion and begin to quarrel, both 
parties conceiving that their opponents are arguing 
from personal feeling only and jealousy of them- 
selves, not from any interest in the question at is- 
sue. And sometimes they will go on abusing one 



Skeptlcis))i and Sopliistrij ' 87 

another until the company at last are quite vexed 
at themselves for ever listening- to such fellows. 
Why do I say this? Why, because I cannot help 
feeling that you are now saying what is not quite 
consistent or accordant with what you were saying 
at first about rhetoric. And I am afraid to point 
this out to you, lest you should think that I have 
some animosity against you, and that I speak, not 
for the sake of discovering the truth, but from jeal- 
ousy of you. Now if you are one of my sort, I 
should like to cross-examine you, but if not I will let 
you alone. And what is my sort? you will ask. I 
am one of those who are very willing to be refuted 
if I say anything which is not true, and very willing 
to refute any one else who says what is not true, 
and quite as ready to be refuted as to refute; for I 
hold that this is the greater gain of the two, just as 
the gain is the greater of being cured of a very great 
evil than of curing another. For I imagine that 
there is no evil which a man can endure so great as 
an erroneous opinion about the matters of which we 
are speaking; and if you claim to be one of my sort, 
let us have the discussion out, but if you would 
rather have done, no matter ; — let us make an end 
of it. 

Gov. I should say, Socrates, that I am quite the 
man whom you indicate; but, perhaps, we ought to 
consider the audience, for, before you came, I had 
already given a long exhibition, and if we proceed 
the argument may run on to great length. And 
therefore I think that we should consider whether 
we may not be detaining some part of the company 
when they are wanting to do something else. 



88 Readings in Philosophy 

Chaerephon. You hear the audience cheering, 
Gorgias and Socrates, which shoAvs their desire to 
listen to you ; and for myself, Heaven forbid that I 
should have any business on hand which would take 
me away from a discussion so interesting and so 
ably maintained. 

Callicles. By the gods, Chaerephon, although I 
have been present at many discussions, I doubt 
whether I was ever so much delighted before, and 
therefore if you go on discoursing all day I shall be 
the better pleased. 

Soc. I may truly say, Callicles, that I am willing, 
if Gorgias is. 

Gor. After all this, Socrates, I should be dis- 
graced if I refused, especially as I have promised to 
answer all comers; in accordance with the wishes 
of the company, then, do you begin, and ask me any 
question which you like. 

Soc. Let me tell you then, Gorgias, what sur- 
prises me in your words ; though I dare say that you 
may be right, and I may have misunderstood your 
meaning. You say that you can make any man who 
will learn of you, a rhetorician? 

Gor. Yes. 

Soc. Do you mean that you will teach him to 
gain the ears of the multitude on any subject, and 
this not by instruction but by persuasion? 

Gor. Quite so. 

Soc. You were saying, in fact, that the rhetori- 
cian will have greater powers of persuasion than the 
physician even in a matter of health? 

Gor. Yes, with the multitude, — that is. 



Skepticism and Sophistri/ 89 

Soc. You mean to say, with the ignorant; for 
with those who know he cannot be supposed to have 
greater powers of persuasion. 

Gor. Very true. 

Soc. But if he is to have more power of persua- 
sion than the physician, he will have greater power 
than he who knows? 

Gor. Certainly. 

Soc. Although he is not a physician — is he? 

Gor. No. 

Soc. And he who is not a physician must, ob- 
viously, be ignorant of what the physician knows. 

Gor. Clearly. 

Soc. Then, when the rhetorician is more per- 
suasive than the physician, the ignorant is more 
persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowl- 
edge ? — is not that the inference ? 

Gor. In the case supposed : — yes. 

Soc. And the same holds of the relation of rhet- 
oric to all the other arts ; the rhetorician need not 
know the truth about things ; he has only to discover 
some way of persuading the ignorant that he has 
more knowledge than those who know? 

Go7\ Yes, Socrates, and is not this a great com- 
fort — not to have learned the other arts, but the 
art of rhetoric only, and yet to be in no way inferior 
to the professors of them? 

C. Later Greek Skepticism 

THE TEN TROPES 

The ten tropes are the ten fundamental modes of 
thought by which one is led to Skepticism : 



90 Readiyigs in Philosophy 

Theyi are these: The first is based upon the dif- 
ferences in animals ; the second upon the differences 
in men ; the third upon the difference in the constitu- 
tion of the organs of sense ; the fourth upon circum- 
stances; the fifth upon position, distance, and place; 
the sixth upon mixtures ; the seventh upon the quan- 
tity and constitution of objects; the eighth upon re- 
lation ; the ninth upon frequency or rarity of occur- 
rences; the tenth upon systems, customs, laws, myth- 
ical beliefs, and dogmatic opinions. We make this 
order ourselves. These Tropes come under three 
general heads: the standpoint of the judge, the 
standpoint of the thing judged, and the standpoint 
of both together. . . . 

It is probable therefore, that the inequalities and 
differences in origin cause great antipathies, in the 
animals, and the result is incompatibility, discord, 
and conflict between the sensations of the different 
animals. Again, the differences in the principal 
parts of the body, especially in those fitted by nature 
to judge and to perceive, may cause the greatest 
differences in their ideas of objects, according to the 
differences in the animals themselves. As for ex- 
ample, those who have the jaundice call that yellow 
which appears to us white, and those who have 
bloodshot eyes call it blood-red. Accordingly, as 
some animals have yellow eyes, and others blood- 
shot ones, and still others whitish ones, and others 
eyes of other colors, it is probable, I think, that they 



^ Patrick, Mary M., Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepti- 
cism; pages 112, 113, 114-118; Deighton, Bell & Co., 1899; 
reprinted by permission. 



Skepticism and Sophistry 91 

have a different perception of colors. Furthermore, 
when we look steadily at the sun for a long' time, and 
then look down at a book, the letters seem to us gold 
colored, and dance around. Now some animals 
have by nature a lustre in their eyes, and these emit 
a fine and sparkling light so that they see at night, 
and we may reasonably suppose that external things 
do not appear the same to them as to us. Jugglers 
by lightly rubbing the wick of the lamp with metal 
rust, or with the dark yellow fluid of the sepia, make 
those who are present appear now copper colored 
and now black, according to the amount of the 
mixture used ; if this be so, it is much more reason- 
able to suppose that because of the mixture of differ- 
ent fluids in the eyes of animals, their ideas of ob- 
jects would be different. Furthermore, when we 
press the eye on the side, the figures, forms and 
sizes of things seen appear elongated and narrow. 
It is therefore probable that such animals as have 
the pupil oblique and long, as goats, cats, and similar 
animals, have ideas different from those of the 
animals which have a round pupil. Mirrors ac- 
cording to their different construction, sometimes 
show the external object smaller than reality, as 
concave ones, and sometimes long and narrow, as 
the convex ones do'; others show the head of the 
one looking into it down, and the feet up. As some 
of the vessels around the eye fall entirely outside 
the eye, on account of their protuberance, while 
others are more sunken, and still others are placed 
in an even surface, it is probable that for this 
reason also the ideas vary, and dogs, fishes, lions, 
men and grasshoppers do not see the same things. 



92 Readings in Philosophy 

either of the same size, or of similar form, but ac- 
cording to the impression on the organ of sight of 
each animal respectively. The same thing is true 
in regard to the other senses; for how can it be 
'said that shell-fish, birds of prey, animals covered 
with spines, those with feathers and those with 
scales would be affected in the same way by the 
sense of touch ? And how can the sense of hearing 
perceive alike in animals which have the narrowest 
auditory passages, and in those that are furnished 
with the widest, or in those with hairy ears and 
those with smooth ones? For we, even, hear dif- 
ferently when we partially stop up the ears, from 
what we do when we use them naturally. The 
sense of smell also varies according to differences 
in animals, since even our sense of smell is affected 
when we have taken cold and the phlegm is too 
abundant, and also parts around our head are flooded 
with too much blood, for we then avoid odors that 
seem agreeable to others, and feel as if we were 
injured by them. Since also some of the animals 
are moist by nature and full of secretions, and still 
others have either yellow or black bile prevalent and 
abundant, it is reasonable because of this to think 
that odorous things appear different to each one of 
them. And it is the same in regard to things of 
taste, as some animals have the tongue rough and 
dry and others very moist. We too, when we have 
a dry tongue in fever, think that whatever we take 
is gritty, bad tasting, or bitter; and this we ex- 
perience because of the varying degrees of the 
humors that are said to be in us. Since, then, dif- 
ferent animals have different organs for taste, and 



Skepticism and Sophistry 93 

a greater or less amount of the various humors, it 
can well be that they form different ideas of the 
same objects as regards their taste. For just as 
the same food on being absorbed becomes in some 
places veins, in other places arteries, and in other 
places bones, nerves, or other tissues, showing dif- 
ferent power according to the difference of the 
parts receiving it; just as the same water absorbed 
by the trees becomes in some places bark, in other 
places branches, and in other places fruit, perhaps 
a fig or a pomegranate, or something else; just as 
the breath of the musician, one and the same when 
blown into the flute, becomes sometimes a high tone 
and sometimes a low one, and the same pressure 
of the hand upon the lyre sometimes causes a deep 
tone and sometimes a high tone, so it is natural to 
suppose that external objects are regarded differ- 
ently according to the different constitution of the 
animals which perceive them. We may see this 
more clearly in the things that are sought for and 
avoided by animals. For example, myrrh appears 
very agreeable to men and intolerable to beetles 
and bees. Oil also, which is useful to men, de- 
stroys wasps and bees if sprinkled on them ; and 
sea-water, while it is unpleasant and poisonous to 
men if they drink it, is most agreeable and sweet 
to fishes. Swine also prefer to wash in vile filth 
rather than in pure clean water. Furthermore, 
some animals eat grass and some eat herbs ; some 
live in the woods, others eat seeds ; some are carniv- 
orous, and others lactivorous; some enjoy putrefied 
food, and others fresh food; some raw food, and 
others that which is prepared by cooking; and in 



94 Readings in Philosophy 

general that which is agreeable to some is disagree- 
able and fatal to others, and should be avoided by 
them. Thus hemlock makes the quail fat, and hen- 
bane the hogs, and these, as it is known, enjoy 
eating lizards ; deer also eat poisonous animals, and 
swallows, the cantharidae. Moreover, ants and fly- 
ing ants, when swallowed by men, cause discom- 
fort and colic ; but the bear, on the contrary, what- 
ever sickness he may have, becomes stronger by 
devouring them. The viper is benumbed if one 
twig of the oak touches it, as is also the bat by a 
leaf of the plane tree. The elephant flees before 
the ram, and the lion before the cock, and seals from 
the rattling of beans that are being pounded, and 
the tiger from the sound of the drum. Many other 
examples could be given, but that we may not seem 
to dwell longer than is necessary on this subject, 
we conclude by saying that since the same things 
are pleasant to some and unpleasant to others, and 
the pleasure and displeasure depend on the ideas, 
it must be that diff'erent animals have different 
ideas of objects. And since the same things ap- 
pear different according to the difference in the 
animals, it will be possible for us to say how the 
external object appears to us, but as to how it is in 
reality we shall suspend our judgment. For we 
cannot ourselves judge between our own ideas and 
those of other animals, being ourselves involved in 
the difference, and therefore much more in need 
of being judged than being ourselves able to judge. 
And furthermore, we cannot give the preference to 
our own mental representations over those of other 
animals, either without evidence or with evidence, 



Skepticism and Sophistry 95 

for besides the fact that perhaps there is no evi- 
dence, as we shall show, the evidence so called will 
be either manifest to us or not. If it is not mani- 
fest to us, then we cannot accept it with convic- 
tion ; if it is manifest to us, since the question is in 
regard to what is manifest to animals, and we use 
as evidence that which is manifest to us who are 
animals, then it is to be questioned if it is true as 
it is manifest to us. It is absurd, however, to try 
to base the questionable on the questionable, be- 
cause the same thing is to be believed and not to be 
believed, which is certainly imipossible. The evi- 
dence is to be believed in so far as it will furnish 
a proof, and disbelieved in so far as it is itself to 
be proved. We shall therefore have no evidence 
according to which we can give preference to our 
own ideas over those of so-called irrational animals. 
Since therefore ideas differ according to the differ- 
ence in animals, and it is impossible to judge them, 
it is necessary to suspend the judgment in regard 
to external objects. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PERSONALITY, MISSION AND INFLUENCE OF 
SOCRATES 

A. SocRATES's Statement of the Causes of 
His Indictment: 

This account is from the writings of Plato, and 
while viewed through his eyes it is nevertheless the 
statement of one whose appreciation of his master 
cannot be surpassed. It is accepted as virtually the 
account of an eye witness:' 

I ^ will begin at the beginning, and ask what is 
the occasion which has given rise to the slander of 
me, and in fact has encouraged Meletus to prefer 
this charge against me. Well, what do the slan- 
derers say? They shall be my prosecutors, and I 
will sum up their words in an affidavit: "Socrates 
is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches 
into things under the earth and in heaven, and he 
makes the worse appear the better cause; and he 
teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others." Such is 
the nature of the accusation: it is just what you 
have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes, 
who has introduced a man whom he calls Socrates, 
going about and saying that he walks in air, and 
talking a deal of nonsense concerning matters of 
which I do not pretend to know either much or 



Plato, Apologij, 19b-23c; Jowett, Op. Cif. 
(96) 



Personality, Mission, Influence of Socrates 97 

little — not that I mean to speak disparagingly of 
any one who is a student of natural philosophy. I 
should be very sorry if Meletus could bring so 
grave a charge against me. But the simple truth 
is, Athenians, that I have nothing to do v^ith 
physical speculations. Very many of those here 
present are witnesses to the truth of this, and to 
them I appeal. Speak, then, you who have heard 
me, and tell your neighbors whether any of you have 
ever known me hold forth in few words or in many 
upon such matters. . . . You hear their an- 
swer. And from what they say of this part of the 
charge you will be able to judge of the truth of 
the rest. 

As little foundation is there for the report that 
I am a teacher, and take money ; this accusation 
has no more truth in it than the other. Although, 
if a man were really able to instruct mankind, to 
receive money for instruction would, in my opinion, 
be an honor to him. There is Gorgias of Leontium 
and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis, who go 
the round of the cities, and are able to persuade the 
young men to leave their own citizens by whom 
they might be taught for nothing, and come to them 
whom they not only pay, but are thankful if they 
may be allowed to pay them. There is at this time 
a Parian philosopher residing in Athens, of whom 
I have heard; and I came to hear of him in this 
way : — I came across a man who has spent a world 
of money on the Sophists, Callias, the son of Hip- 
ponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked 
him : 'Callias', I said, 'if your two sons were foals 



98 Readings in Philosophy 

or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding 
some one to put over them ; we should hire a trainer 
of horses, or a farmer probably, who would im- 
prove and perfect them in their own proper virtue 
and excellence ; but as they are human beings, whom 
are you thinking of placing over them? Is there 
any one who understands human and political vir- 
tue? You must have thought about the matter, for 
you have sons; is there any one? There is', he 
said 'Who is he T said I ; 'and of what country ? 
and what does he charge?' 'Evenus the Parian,' 
he replied; 'he is the man, and his charge is five 
minae.' Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he 
really has this wisdom, and teaches at such a mod- 
erate charge. Had I the same, I should have been 
very proud and conceited; but the truth is that I 
have no knowledge of the kind. 

I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you 
will reply, 'Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin 
of these accusations which are brought against you ; 
there must have been something strange which you 
have been doing? All these rumours and this talk 
about you would never have arisen if you had been 
like other men; tell us, then, what is the cause of 
them, for we should be sorry to judge hastily of 
you.' Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and 
I will endeavor to explain to you the reason why I 
am called wise and have such an evil fame. Please 
to attend then. And although some of you may 
think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you 
the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of 
mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I 
possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I 



Pei'soiiaUtij, Mission, Influence of Socrates 99 

reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by 
man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that 
I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was 
speaking have a superhuman wisdom, which I may 
fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and 
he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is tak- 
ing away my character. And here, men of 
Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if 
I seem to say something extravagant. For the 
word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer 
you to a witness who is worthy of credit; that wit- 
ness sh^ll be the God of Delphi — he will tell you 
about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort 
it is. You must have known Chaerephon ; he was 
early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, 
for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and 
returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, 
was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went 
to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him 
whether — as I was saying, I must beg you not to 
interrupt — he asked the oracle to tell him whether 
any one was wiser than I was, and the Pythian 
prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. 
Chaerephon is dead himself ; but his brother, who is 
in court, will confirm the truth of what I am saying. 
Why do I mention this? Because I am going to 
explain to you why I have such an evil name. When 
I heard the answer, I said to myself, what can the 
god mean? and what is the interpretation of his 
riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom small or 
great. What then can he mean when he says that 
I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god and 
cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After 



100 Readings In Philosophy 

long consideration, I thought of a method of trying 
the question. I reflected that if I could only find 
a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god 
with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him,' 
'Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you 
said that I was the wisest.' Accordingly I went to 
one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed 
him — -his name I need not mention; he was a 
politician whom I selected for examination — and 
the result was as follows : When I began to talk 
with him, I could not help thinking that he wo-s not 
really wise, although he was thought wise hf mnny, 
and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried 
to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but 
was not really wise; and the consequence was that 
he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several 
who were present and heard me. So I left him, 
saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although 
I do not suppose that either of us knows anything 
really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, 
— for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows ; 
I neither know nor think that I know. In this 
latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the 
advantage of him. Then I went to another who 
had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my con- 
clusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made 
another enemy of him, and of many others besides 
him. 

Then I went to one man after another, being not 
unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and 
I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid 
upon me, — the word of God, I thought ought to be 
considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must 



Personality, Mission, Inflcience of Socrates 101 

to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning 
of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, by 
the dog I swear ! — for I must tell you the truth — 
the result of my mission was just this: I found that 
the men most in repute were all but the most foolish ; 
and that others less esteemed were really wiser and 
better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings 
and of the 'Herculean' labours, as I may call them, 
which I endured only to find at last the oracle irre- 
futable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; 
tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I 
said to myself, you will be instantly detected; now 
you will find out that you are more ignorant than 
they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the 
most elaborate passages in their own writings, and 
asked what was the meaning of them — thinking 
that they would teach me something. Will you be- 
lieve me? I am almost ashamed to confess the 
truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person 
present who would not have talked better about 
their poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew 
that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a 
sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners 
or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but 
do not understand the meaning of them. The poets 
appeared to me to be much in the same case ; and I 
further observed that upon the strength of their 
poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of 
men in other things in which they were not wise. 
So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to 
them for the same reason that I was superior to the 
politicians. 



102 Readings in Philosopliy 

At last I went to the artisans, for I was conscious 
that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was 
sure that they knew many fine things ; and here I 
was not mistaken, for they did know many things of 
which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly 
were wiser than I was. But I observed that even 
the good artisan fell into the same error as the 
poets ; — because they were good workmen they 
thought that they also knew all sorts of high mat- 
ters, and this defect in them overshadowed their 
wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of 
the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, 
neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, 
or like them in both ; and I made answer to myself 
and to the oracle that I was better off as I was. 

This inquisition has led to my having many ene- 
mies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has 
given occasion to many calumnies. And I am called 
wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself 
possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others : 
but the truth is, men of Athens, that God only is 
wise; and by his answer he intends to show that 
the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is 
not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name 
by way of illustration, as if he said. He, O men, is 
the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wis- 
dom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go about 
the world, obedient to the god, and search and make 
enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen 
or stranger, who appears to be wise ; and if he is not 
wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him 
that he is not wise ; and my occupation quite absorbs 
me, and I have no time to give either to any public 



Personality, Mission, Influence of Socrates 103 

matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but 
I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to 
the god. 

B. The Socratic Maieutic 

This passage is a typical expression of the view 
of Socrates regarding instruction as a process of 
drawing out of the mind its own implicit ideas : 

Theaet.^ I can assure you, Socrates, that I have 
tried very often, when the report of questions asked 
by you was brought to me; but I can neither per- 
suade myself that I have a satisfactory answer to 
give, nor hear of any one who answers as you would 
have him; and I cannot shake off a feeling of 
anxiety. 

Soc. These are the pangs of labor, my dear 
Theaetetus; you have something within you which 
you are bringing to the birth. 

Theaet. I do not know, Socrates ; I only say what 
I feel. 

■ Soc. And have you never heard, simpleton, that 
I am the son of a midwife, brave and burly, whose 
name was Phaenarete? 

Theaet. Yes, I have. 

^Soc. And that I myself practice midwifery? 

Theaet. No, never. 

Soc- Well, my art of midwifery is in most re- 
spects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men 
and not women, and I look after their souls when 
they are in labour, and not after their bodies : and 



^ Plato, Theaetetus, 148e-149a; Jowett, Op. Cit. 
Uhid. 150c-151d. 



104 Readings in Philosophy 

the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining- 
whether the thought which the mind of the young 
man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true 
birth. And like the midwives, I am barren, and the 
reproach which is often made against me, that I ask 
questions of others and have not the wit to answer 
them myself, is very just — the reason is, that the 
god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow 
me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself 
at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the 
invention or birth of my own soul, but those who 
converse with me profit. Some of them appear dull 
enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance 
ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make 
astonishing progress ; and this is. in the opinion of 
others as well as in their own. It is quite clear 
that they never learned anything from me; The 
many fine discoveries to which they cling are of 
their own making. But to me and the god they 
owe their delivery. And the proof of my words is, 
that many of them in their ignorance, either in 
their self-conceit despising me, or falling under the 
influence of others, have gone away too soon; and 
have not only lost the children of whom I had pre- 
viously delivered them by an ill bringing up, but 
have stifled whatever else they had in them by evil 
communications, being fonder of lies and shams 
than of the truth; and they have at last ended by 
seeing themselves, as others see them, to be great 
fools. Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, is one of 
them, and there are many others. The truants often 
return to me, and beg that I would consort with 
them again — they are ready to go to me on their 



Personality, Mission, Influence of Socrates 105 

knees — and then, if my familiar allows, which is 
not always the case, I receive them, and they begin 
to g-row again. Dire are the pangs which my art is 
able to arouse and to allay in those who consort with 
me, just like the pangs of women in childbirth; night 
and day they are full of perplexity and travail 
which is even worse than that of the women. So 
much for them. And there are others, Theaetetus, 
who come to me apparently having nothing in them ; 
and as I know that they have no need of my art, I 
coax them into marrying some one, and by the 
grace of God I can generally tell who is likely to 
do them good. Many of them I have given away 
to Prodicus, and many to other inspired sages. I 
tell you this long story, friend Theaetetus, because 
I suspect, as indeed you seem to think yourself, that 
you are in labour — great with some conception. 
Come then to me, — who am a midwife's son and 
myself a midwife, and do your best to answer the 
questions which I will ask you. And if I abstract 
and expose your first-born, because I discover upon 
inspection that the conception which you have 
formed is a vain shadow, do not quarrel with me on 
that account, as the manner of women is when their 
first children are taken from them. For I have 
actually known some who were ready to bite me 
when I deprived them of a darling folly; they did 
not perceive that I acted from goodwill, not know- 
ing that no god is the enemy of man — that was not 
within the range of their ideas; neither am I their 
enemy in all this, but it would be wrong for me to 
admit falsehood, or to stifle the truth. Once more, 
then, Theaetetus, I repeat my old question, 'What is 



106 Readings in Philosophy 

knowledge ?' — and do not say that you cannot tell ; 
but quit yourself like a man, and by the help of 
God you will be able to tell. 

Theaet. At any rate, Socrates, after such an 
exhortation I should be ashamed of not trying to do 
my best. 

C. The Fundamental Value of Human Life 
Plato here represents Socrates as discussing the 
central problem of ethics and setting forth what he 
regards as the key note to the solution : 

Has^ your property, Cephalus, been chiefly in- 
herited or acquired? 

Have I acquired it, do you say, Socrates ? Why, in 
the conduct of money matters, I stand midway be- 
tween my grandfather and my father. My grand- 
father, whose name I bear, inherited nearly as much 
property as I now possess, and increased it till it 
was many times as large ; while my father Lysanias 
brought it down even below what it now is. For 
my part, I shall be content to leave it to these my 
sons not less, but if anything rather larger, than it 
was when it came into my hands. 

I asked the question, I said, because you seemed to 
me to be not very fond of money : which is generally 
the case with those who have not made it themselves ; 
whereas those who have made it, are twice as much 
attached to it as other people. For just as poets 
love their own works, and fathers their own chil- 
dren, in the same way those who have created a 



'Plato, Republic, Book I, 330b-332; Davies and Vaughan, 

Op. at. 



Personality, Mission, Irifiiience of Socrates 107 

fortune value their money, not merely for its uses, 
like other persons, but because it is their own pro- 
duction. This makes them moreover disagreeable 
companions, because they will praise nothing but 
riches. 

It is true, he replied. 

Indeed it is, said *I. But let me ask you one more 
question. What do you think is the greatest advan- 
tage that you have derived from being wealthy? 

If I mention it, he replied, I shall perhaps get 
few persons to agree with me. Be assured, So- 
crates, that when a man is nearly persuaded that 
he is going to die, he feels alarmed and concerned 
about things which never affected him before. Till 
then he has laughed at those stories about the de- 
parted, which tell us that he who has done wrong 
here must suffer for it in the other world ; but now 
his mind is tormented with a fear that these stories 
may possibly be true. And either owing to the in- 
firmity of old age, or because he is now nearer to 
the confines of the future state, he has clearer in- 
sight into those mysteries. However that may be, 
he becomes full of misgiving and apprehension, and 
sets himself to the task of calculating and reflecting 
whether he has done any wrong to any one. Here- 
upon, if he finds his life full of unjust deeds, he is 
apt to start out of sleep in terror, as children do, 
and he lives haunted by gloomy anticipations. But 
if his conscience reproaches him with no injustice, 
he enjoys the abiding presence of sweet Hope, that 
'kind nurse of old age,' as Pindar calls it. For in- 
deed, Socrates, those are beautiful words of his, in 
which he says of the man who has lived a just and 



108 Readings in Philosophy 

holy life, 'Sweet Hope is his companion, cheering his 
heart, the nurse of age, — Hope, which, more than 
aught else, steers the capricious will of mortal men'. 
There is really a wonderful truth in this descrip- 
tion. And it is this consideration, as I hold, that 
makes riches chiefly valuable, I do not say to every 
body, but at any rate to the good. For they con- 
tribute greatly to our preservation from even unin- 
tentional deceit or falsehood, and from that alarm 
which would attend our departure to the other 
world, if we owed any sacrifices to a god, or any 
money to a man. They have also many other uses. 
But after weighing them all separately, Socrates, I 
am inclined to consider this service as anything but 
the least important which riches can render to a 
wise and sensible man. 

You have spoken admirably, Cephalus. But what 
are we to understand by that very quality, justice, 
to which you refer? Are we to define it as neither 
more nor less than veracity and restitution of what 
one man has received from another ; or is it possible 
for actions of this very nature to be sometimes just 
and sometimes unjust? For example, every one, I 
suppose, would admit, that, if a man, while in the 
possession of his senses, were to place dangerous 
weapons in the hands of a friend, and afterwards 
in a fit of madness to demand them back, such a 
deposit ought not to be restored, and that his friend 
would not be a just man if he either returned the 
weapons, or consented to tell the whole truth to one 
so circumstanced. 

You are right, he replied. 



Personality, Mission, Influence of Socrates 109 

Then it is no true definition of justice to say that 
it consists in speal^ing the truth and restoring- what 
one has received. 

Nay but it is, Socrates, said Polemarchus, inter- 
posing, at least if we are at all to believe Simonides. 

Very well, said Cephalus, I will just leave the 
discussion to you. It is time for me to attend to the 
sacrifices. 

Then Polemarchus inherits your share in it, does 
he not? I asked. 

Certainly, he replied, with a smile ; and immedi- 
ately, withdrew to the sacrifices. 

Answer me then, I proceeded, you that are the 
heir to the discussion ; — What do you maintain to be 
the correct account of justice, as given by Simon- 
ides ? 

That to restore to each man what is his due, is 
just. To me it seems that Simonides is right in 
giving this account of the matter. 

Well, certainly it is not an easy matter to disbe- 
lieve Simonides ; for he is a wise and inspired man. 
But what he means by his words, you, Polemarchus, 
may perhaps understand, though I do not. It is 
clear that he does not mean what we were saying 
just now, namely, that property given by one person 
in trust to another, is to be returned to the donor, 
if he asks for it in a state of insanity. And yet 1 
conclude that property given in trust is due to the 
truster. Is it not? 

Yes, it is. . . . . 



110 Readings in Philosophy 

We- are debating no trivial question, but the man- 
ner in which a man ought to live. 

Pray consider it. 

I will. Tell me, do you think there is such a thing 
as a horse's function? 

I do. 

Would you, then, describe the function of a horse, 
or of anything else whatever, as that work, for the 
accomplishment of which it is either the sole or the 
best instrument? _^ 

I do not understand. 

Look at it this way. Can you see with anything 
besides eyes? 

Certainly not. 

Can you hear with anything besides ears ? 

No. 

Then should we not justly say that seeing and 
hearing are the functions of these organs? 

Yes, certainly. 

Again, you might cut off a vine-shoot with a carv- 
ing knife, or chisel, or many other tools? 

Undoubtedly. 

But with no tool, I imagine, so well as with the 
pruning knife made for the purpose. 

True. 

Then shall we not define pruning to be the func- 
tion of the pruning. knife? 

By all means. 

Now then, I think, you will better understand 
what I wished to learn from you just now, when I 
asked whether the function of a thing is not that 



Ihid., 352d-354. 



Personality, Mission, Influence of Socrates 111 

work for the accomplishment of which it is either 
the sole or the best instrument? 

I do understand, and I believe that this is in every 
case the function of a thing. 

Very well : do you not also think that everything 
which has an appointed function has also a proper 
virtue? Let us revert to the same instances; we say 
that the eyes have a function? 

They have. 

Then have the eyes a virtue also? 

They have. 

And the ears: did we assign them a function? 

Yes. 

Then have they a virtue also? 

They have. 

And is it the same with all other things? 

The same. 

Attend then : Do you suppose that the eyes could 
discharge their own function well if they had not 
their own proper virtue, — that virtue being re- 
placed by a vice? 

How could they? You mean, probably, if sight is 
replaced by blindness. 

I mean, whatever their virtue be; for I am not 
come to that question yet. At present I am asking 
whether it is through their own peculiar virtue that 
things perform their proper functions well, and 
through their own peculiar vice that they perform 
them ill? 

You cannot be wrong in that. 

Then if the ears lose their own virtue, will they 
execute their functions ill? 

Certainly. 



112 . Readings in Philosophy 

May we include all other things under the same 
proposition? 

I think we may. 

Come, then, consider this point next. Has the 
soul any function which could not be executed by 
means of anything else whatsoever? For example, 
could we in justice assign superintendence and gov- 
ernment, deliberation and the like, to anything but 
the soul, or should we pronounce them to be peculiar 
to it? 

We could ascribe them to nothing else. 

Again, shall we declare life to be a function of the 
soul? 

Decidedly. 

Do we not also maintain that the soul has a 
virtue? 

We do. 

Then can it ever so happen, Thrasymachus, that 
the soul will perform its functions well when desti- 
tute of its own peculiar virtue, or is that impossible? 

Impossible. 

Then a bad soul must needs exercise authority and 
superintendence ill, and a good soul must do all 
these things well. 

Unquestionably. 

Now did we not grant that justice was a virtue of 
the soul,*and injustice a vice? 

We did. 

Consequently the just soul and the just man will 
live well, and the unjust man ill? 

Apparently, according to your argument. 

And you will allow that he who lives well is 
blessed and happy, and he who lives otherwise is the 
reverse. 



CHAPTER VII 
PLATO 

A. Theory of Knowledge and of Love 

The following are two classic passages giving 
Plato's views of some of the central aspects of his 
philosophy : 

Of^ the nature of the soul, though her true form 
be ever a theme of large and more than mortal dis- 
course, let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And 
let the figure be composite — a pair of winged 
horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses 
And the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble 
and of noble descent, but those of other races are 
mixed ; the human charioteer drives his in a pair ; 
and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and 
the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the 
driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of 
trouble to him. I will endeavor to explain to you 
in what way the mortal differs from the immortal 
creature. The soul in her totality has the care of 
inanimate being everywhere, and traverses the 
whole heaven in divers forms appearing ; — when 
perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and or- 
ders the whole world ; whereas the imperfect soul, 
losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last 
settles on the solid ground — there, finding a home, 



^ Plato, Phaedrvs, 246-256; Jowett, Op. Cit. 
(113) 



Il4 Headings in Philosophy 

she receives an earthly frame which appears to be 
self-moved, but is really moved by her power; and 
this composition of soul and body is called a living 
and mortal creature. For immortal no such union 
can be reasonably believed to be; although fancy, 
not having seen nor surely known the nature of 
God, may imagine an immortal creature having 
both a body and also a soul which are united through 
all time. Let that, however, be as God wills, and be 
spoken of acceptably to him. And now let us ask 
the reason why the soul loses her wings ! 

The wing is the corporeal element which is most 
akin to the divine, and which by nature tends to 
soar aloft and carry that which gravitates down- 
wards into the upper region, which is the habita- 
tion of the gods. The divine is beauty, wisdom, 
goodness, and the like; and by these the wing of the 
soul is nourished, and grows apace; but when fed 
upon evil and foulness and the opposite of good, 
wastes and falls away. Zeus, the mighty lord, hold- 
ing the reins of a winged chariot, leads the way in 
heaven, ordering all and taking care of all ; and there 
follows him the array of gods and demi-gods, mar- 
shalled in eleven bands ; Hestia alone abides at home 
in the house of heaven ; of the rest they who are 
reckoned among the princely twelve march in their 
appointed order. They see many blessed sights in 
the inner heaven, and there are many ways to and 
fro, along which the blessed gods are passing, every 
one doing his own work; he may follow who will 
and can, for jealousy has no place in the celestial 
choir. But when they go to banquet and festival, 
then they move up the steep to the top of the vault 



Plato 115 

of heaven. The chariots of the gods in even poise, 
obeying the rein, glide rapidly ; but the others labor, 
for the vicious steed goes heavily, weighing down 
the charioteer to the earth when his steed has not 
been thoroughly trained : — and this is the hour of 
agony and extremest conflict for the soul. For the 
immortals, when they are at the end of their course, 
go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven, and 
the revolution of the spheres carries them round, and 
they behold the things beyond. But of the heaven 
which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever 
did or ever will sing worthily? It is such as I will 
describe; for I must dare to speak the truth, when 
truth is my theme. There abides the very being 
with which true knowledge is concerned ; the colour- 
less, formless, intangible essence, visible only to 
mind, who is the pilot of the soul. The divine in- 
telligence, being nurtured upon mind and pure 
knowledge, and the intelligence of every soul which 
is capable of receiving the food proper to it, rejoices 
at beholding reality, and once more gazing upon 
truth, is replenished and made glad, until the revolu- 
tion of the worlds brings her round again to the 
same place. In the revolution she beholds justice, 
and temperance, and knowledge absolute, not in the 
form of generation or of relation, which men call 
existence, but knowledge absolute in existence abso- 
lute ; and beholding the other true existences in like 
manner, and feasting upon them, she passes down 
into the interior of the heavens and returns home ; 
and there the charioteer putting up his horses at 
the stall, gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to 
drink. 



116 Readings in Philosophy 

Such is the life of the gods ; but of other souls, 
that which follows God best and is likest to him 
lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world, 
and is carried round in the revolution, troubled in- 
deed by the steeds, and with difficulty beholding true 
being; while another only rises and falls, and sees, 
and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of 
the steeds. The rest of the souls are also longing 
after the upper world, and they all follow, but not 
being strong enough they are carried round below 
the surface, plunging, treading on one another, each 
striving to be first; and there is confusion and per- 
spiration and the extremity of effort; and many of 
them are lamed or have their wings broken through 
the ill driving of the charioteers; and all of them 
after a fruitless toil, not having attained to the 
mysteries of true being, go away, and feed upon 
opinion. The reason why the souls exhibit this 
exceeding eagerness to behold the plain of truth is 
that pasturage is found there, which is suited to the 
highest part of the soul ; and the wing on which the 
soul soars is nourished with this. And there is a 
law of Destiny, that the soul which attains any 
vision of truth in company with a god is preserved 
from harm until the next period, and if attaining 
always is always unharmed. But when she is unable 
to fc How, and fails to. behold the truth, and through 
some ill-hap sinks beneath the double load of for- 
getf ulness and vice, and her wings fall from her and 
she drops to the ground, then the law ordains that 
this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into any 
other animal, but only into man ; and the soul which 
has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a 



Plato . 117 

philosopher, or artist, or some musical and loving 
nature; that which has seen truth in the second 
degree shall be some righteous king or warrior chief; 
the soul which is of the third class shall be a politi- 
cian, or economist, or trader; the fourth shall be a 
lover of gymnastic toils, or a physician; the fifth 
shall lead the life of a prophet or hierophant; to the 
sixth the character of a poet or some other imitative 
artist will be assigned ; to the seventh the life of an 
artisan or husbandman ; to the eighth that of a . 
sophist or demagogue; to the ninth that of a tyrant; 
— all these are states of probation, in which he who 
does righteously improves, and he who does un- 
righteously, deteriorates his lot. 

Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul 
of each one can return to the place whence she came, 
for she cannot grow her wings in less ; only the soul 
of a philosopher, guileless and' true, or the soul of 
a lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire 
wings in the third of the recurring periods of a 
thousand years; — these, if they choose this higher 
life three times in succession, have wings given 
them, and go away at the end of three thousand 
years. But the other souls receive judgment when 
they have completed their first life, and after the 
judgment they go, some of them to the houses of 
correction which are under the earth, and are pun- 
ished; others to some place in heaven whither they 
are lightly borne by justice, and there they live in a 
manner worthy of the life which they led here when 
in the form of men. And at the end of the first thou- 
sand years the good souls and also the evil souls 
both come to draw lots and choose their second life. 



118 ^ Readings in Philosophy 

and they may take any which they please. The 
soul of a man may pass into the life of a beast, or 
from the beast return again into the man. But the 
soul which has never seen the truth will not pass 
into the human form. For a man must have intel- 
ligence of universals, and be able to proceed from 
the many particulars of sense to one conception of 
reason ; — this is the recollection of those things 
which our soul once saw while following God, when, 
, regardless of that which we now call being, she 
raised her head up towards the true being. And 
therefore the mind of the philosopher alone has 
wings; and this is just, for he is always, according 
to the measure of his abilities, clinging in recollec- 
tion to those 'things in which God abides, and in 
which abiding He is Divine. And he who employs 
aright these memories is ever being initiated into 
perfect mysteries an'd alone becomes truly perfect. 
But, as he forgets earthly interests and is rapt in the 
divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and rebuke him; 
they do not see that he is inspired. 

Thus far I have been speaking of the fourth and 
last kind of madness, which is imputed to him who, 
when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported 
with the recollection of the true beauty; he would 
like to fly away, but he cannot; he is like a bird 
fluttering and looking upward and careless of the 
world below; and he is therefore thought to be mad. 
And I have shown this of all inspirations to be the 
noblest and highest and the offspring of the highest 
to him who has or shares in it, and that he who 
loves the beautiful is called a lover because he par- 
takes of it. For, as has been already said, every 



Plato 119 

soul of man has in the way of nature beheld true 
being ; this was the condition of her passing into the 
form of man. But all souls do not easily recall the 
things of the other world ; they may have seen them 
for a short time only, or they may have been unfor- 
tunate in their earthly "lot, and, having had their 
hearts turned to unrighteousness through some cor- 
rupting influence, they may have lost the memory 
of the holy things which once they saw. Few only 
retain an adequate remembrance of them ; and they, 
when they behold here any image of that other 
world, are rapt in amazement; but they are igno- 
rant of what this rapture means, because they do 
not clearly perceive. For there is no light of jus- 
tice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which 
are precious to souls in the earthly copies of them : 
they are seen through a glass dimly; and there are 
few who, going to the images, behold in them the 
realities, and these only with difficulty. There was 
a time when with the rest of the happy band they 
saw beauty shining in brightness, — we philosophers 
following in the train of Zeus, others in company 
with other gods ; and then we beheld the beatific 
vision and were initiated into a mystery which may 
be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our 
state of innocence, before we had any experience 
of evils to come, when we were admitted to the 
sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm 
and happy, which we beheld shining in pure light, 
pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living 
tomb which we carry about, now that we are im- 
prisoned in the body, like an oyster in his shell. Let 



120 Readings in Philosophy 

me linger over the memory of scenes which have 
passed away. 

But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her 
there shining in company with the celestial forms; 
and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in 
clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. 
For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; 
though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness 
would have been transporting if there had been a 
visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they 
had visible counterparts, would be equally lovely. 
But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the 
loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight. Now 
he who is not newly initiated or who has become 
corrupted, does not easily rise out of this world to 
the sight of true beauty in the other ; he looks only 
at her earthly namesake, and instead of being awed 
at the sight of her, he is given over to pleasure, and 
like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and beget; 
he consorts with wantonness, and is not afraid or 
ashamed of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature. 
But he whose initiation is recent, and who has been 
the spectator of many glories in the other world, is 
amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face 
or any bodily form which is the expression of divine 
beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, 
and again the old awe steals over him ; then looking 
upon the face of his beloved as of a god he rever- 
ences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought 
a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his be- 
loved as to the image of a god ; then while he gazes 
on him there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder 
passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for, 



Plato 121 

as he receives the efRuence of beauty through the 
eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. And as he 
warms, the parts out of which the wing grew, and 
which had been hitherto closed and rigid, and had 
prevented the wing from shooting forth, are melted, 
and as nourishment streams upon him, the lower 
end of the wing begins to swell and grow from the 
root upwards; and the growth extends under the 
whole soul — for once the whole was winged. Dur- 
ing this process the whole soul is in a state of ebul- 
lition and effervescence. And as in the cutting of 
teeth there' is an irritation and tickling of the gums 
at the time of growing them, so when the soul begins 
to grow wings she bubbles up, and there is a feel- 
ing of uneasiness and tickling; and when the beauty 
of the beloved meets her eye, and she receives the 
sensible warm motion of particles which flow to- 
wards her, therefore called emotion, and is refreshed 
and warmed by them, she ceases from her pain with 
joy. But when she is parted from her beloved and 
her moisture fails, then the orifices of the passage 
out of which the wing shoots dry up and close, and 
intercept the germ of the wing ; which being shut up 
with the emotion, throbbing as with the pulsations 
of an artery, pricks the aperture which is nearest, 
until at length the entire soul is pierced and mad- 
dened and pained, and at the recollection of beauty 
is again delighted. And from the mingling of the 
two feelings the soul is oppressed at the strangeness 
of her condition, and is in a great strait and excite- 
ment, and in her madness can neither sleep by night 
nor abide in her place by day. And wherever she 
thinks that she will behold the beautiful one, thither 



122 Readings in Philosophy 

in her desire she runs. And when she has seen 
him, and bathed in the waters of desire, her con- 
straint is loosened, and she is refreshed, and has no 
more pangs and pains; and this is the sweetest of 
all pleasures at the time, and is the reason why the 
soul of the lover will never forsake his beautiful one, 
whom he esteems above all ; he has forgotten mother 
and brethren and companions, and he thinks nothing 
of the neglect and loss of his property; the rules 
and proprieties of life, on which he fonnerly prided 
himself, he now despises, and is ready to sleep like 
a servant, wherever he is allowed, as near as he can 
to his desired one, who is the object of his worship, 
and the physician who can alone assuage the great- 
ness of his pain. And this state, my dear imagi- 
nary youth to whom I am talking, is by men called 
Love, and among the gods has a name at which you, 
in your simplicity, may be inclined to mock; there 
are two lines in the apocryphal writings of Homer in 
which the name occurs. One of them is rather out- 
rageous, and not altogether metrical. They are as 
follows: 

"Mortals call him fluttering love, 

But the immortals call him winged one. 

Because the growing of wings is a necessity to him." 

You may believe this, but not unless you like. At 
any rate the loves of lovers and their causes are 
such as I have described. 

Now the lover who is taken to be the attendant 
of Zeus is better able to bear the winged god, and 
can endure a heavier burden ; but the attendants and 
companions of Ares, when under the influence of 



Plato • 123 

love, if they fancy that they have been at all 
wronged, are ready to kill and put an end to them- 
selves and their beloved. And he who follows in the 
train of any other god, while he is unspoiled and 
the impression lasts, honours and imitates him, as 
far as he is able ; and after the manner of his God 
he behaves in his intercourse with his beloved and 
with the rest of the world during the first period of 
his earthly existence. Every one chooses his love 
from the ranks of beauty according to his character, 
and this he makes his god, and fashions and adorns 
as a sort of image which he is to fall down and 
worship. The followers of Zeus desire that their 
beloved should have a soul like him; and therefore 
they seek out some one of a philosophical and im- 
perial nature, and when they have found him and 
loved him, they do all they can to confirm such a 
nature in him, and if they have no experience of 
such a disposition hitherto, they learn of any one 
who can teach them, and themselves follow in the 
same way. And they have the less difficulty in find- 
ing the nature of their own god in themselves, be- 
cause they have been compelled to gaze intensely on 
him; their recollection clings to him, and they be- 
come possessed of him, and receive from him their 
character and disposition, so far as man can par- 
ticipate in God. The qualities of their god they at- 
tribute to the beloved, wherefore they love him all 
the more, and if, like the Bacchic Nymphs, they 
draw inspiration from Zeus, they pour out their own 
fountain upon him, wanting to make him as like as 
possible to their own god. But those who are the 
followers of Here seek a royal love, and when they 



124 • Readings m Philosophy 

have found him they do just the same with him; 
and in like manner the followers of Apollo^ and of 
every other god walking in the ways of their god, 
seek a love who is to be made like him whom they 
serve, and when they have found him, they them- 
selves imitate their god, and persuade their love to 
do the same, and educate him into the manner and 
nature of the god as far as they each can; for no 
feelings of envy or jealousy are entertained by them 
towards their beloved, but they do their utmost to 
create in him the greatest likeness of themselves 
and of the god whom they honour. Thus fair and 
blissful to the beloved is the desire of the inspired 
lover, and the initiation of which I speak into the 
mysteries of true love, if he be captured by the 
lover and their purpose is effected. Now the be- 
loved is taken captive in the following manner : — 
At the beginning of this tale, I divided each soul 
into three — two horses and a charioteer; and one 
of the horses was good and the other bad : the divi- 
sion may remain, but I have not yet explained in 
what the goodness or badness of either consists, and 
to that I will now proceed. The right-hand horse 
is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty neck 
and an aquiline nose; his colour is white, and his 
eyes dark ; he is a lover of honour and modesty and 
temperance, and the follower of true glory ; he needs 
no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and ad- 
monition only. The other is a crooked and lum- 
bering animal, put together anyhow; he has a short 
thick neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark colour, 
with grey and blood-shot eyes ; the mate of insolence 
and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to 



Plato 125 

whip and spur. Now when the charioteer beholds 
the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed 
through sense, and is full of prickings and ticklings 
of desire, the obedient steed, then as always under 
the government of shame, refrains from leaping on 
the beloved ; but the other, heedless of the pricks and 
of the blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, 
giving all manner of trouble to his companion and 
the charioteer, whom he forces to approach the be- 
loved and to remember the joys of love. They at 
first indignantly oppose him and will not be urged 
on to do terrible and unlawful deeds ; but at last, 
when he persists in plaguing them, they yield and 
agree to do as he bids them. And now they are at 
the spot and behold the flashing beauty of the be- 
loved ; which when the charioteer sees, his memory- 
is carried to the true beauty, whom he beholds in 
company with Modesty like an image placed upon a 
holy pedestal. He sees her, but he is afraid and falls 
backwards in adoration, and by his fall is compelled 
to pull back the reins with such violence as to bring 
both the steeds on their haunches, the one willing 
and unresisting, the unruly one very unwilling; and 
when they have gone back a little, the one is over- 
come with shame and wonder, and his whole soul is 
bathed in perspiration; the other, when the pain 
is over which the bridle and the fall had given him, 
having with difficulty taken breath, is full of wrath 
and reproaches, which he heaps upon the charioteer 
and his fellow-steed, for want of courage and man- 
hood, declaring that they have been false to their 
agreement and guilty of desertion. Again they 
refuse, and again he urges them on, and will scarce 



126 Readings in Philosophy 

yield to their prayer that he would wait until an- 
other time. When the appointed hour comes, they 
make as if they had forgotten, and he reminds them, 
fighting and neighing and dragging them on, until 
at length he on the same thoughts intent, forces 
them to draw near again. And when they are near 
he stoops his head and puts up his tail, and takes 
the bit in his teeth and pulls shamelessly. Then the 
charioteer is worse off than ever; he falls back like 
a racer at the barrier, and Vv^ith a still more violent 
wrench drags the bit out of the teeth of the wild 
steed and covers his abusive tongue and jaws with 
blood, and forces his legs and haunches to the 
ground and punishes him sorely. And when this 
has happened several times and the villain has 
ceased from his wanton way, he is tamed and 
humbled, and follows the will of the charioteer, and 
when he sees the beautiful one he is ready to die of 
fear. And from that time forward the soul of the 
lover follows the beloved in modesty and holy fear. 
And so the beloved who, like a god, has received 
every true and loyal service from his lover, not in 
pretence but in reality, being also himself of a 
nature friendly to his admirer, if in former days he 
has blushed to own his passion and turned away his 
lover, because his youthful companions or others 
slanderously told him that he would be disgraced, 
now as years advance, at the appointed age and 
time, is led to receive him into communion. For 
fate which has ordained that there shall be no 
friendship among the evil has also ordained that 
there shall ever be friendship among the good. And 
the beloved when he has received him into com- 



Plato 127 

munion and intimacy, is quite amazed at the good- 
will of the lover; he recognises that the inspired 
friend is worth all other friends or kinsmen; they 
have nothing of friendship in them worthy to be 
compared with his. And when this feeling con- 
tinues and he is nearer to him and embraces him, 
in gymnastic exercises and at other times of meet- 
ing, then the fountain of that stream, which Zeus 
when he was in love with Ganymede named Desire, 
overflows upon the lover, and some enters into his 
soul, and some when he is filled flows out again ; and 
as a breeze or an echo rebounds from the smooth 
rocks and returns whence it came, so does the stream 
of beauty, passing through the eyes which are the 
windows of the soul, come back to the beautiful 
one; there arriving and quickening the passages of 
the wings, watering them, and inclining them to 
grow, and filling the soul of the beloved also with 
love. And thus he loves, but he knows not what; 
he does not understand and cannot explain his own 
state; he appears to have caught the infection of 
blindness from another; the lover is his mirror in 
whom he is beholding himself, but he is not aware 
of this. When he is with the lover, both cease from 
their pain, but when he is away then he longs as 
he is longed for, and has love's image, love for love 
(Anteros) lodging in his breast, which he calls and 
believes to be not love but friendship only, and his 
desire is as the desire of the other, but weaker; he 
wants to see him, touch him, kiss, embrace him, and 
probably not long afterwards his desire is accom- 
plished. When they meet, the wanton steed of the 
lover has a word to say to the charioteer; he would 



128 Readings in Philosophy 

like to have a little pleasure in return for many 
pains, but the wanton steed of the beloved says not 
a word, for he is bursting with passion which he 
understands not ; — he throws his arms round the 
lover and embraces him as his dearest friend; and, 
when they are side by side, he is not in a state in 
which he can refuse the lover anything, if he ask 
him; although his fellow steed and the charioteer 
oppose him with the arguments of shame and 
reason. After this their happiness depends upon 
their self-contjol ; if the better elements of the mind 
which lead to order and philosophy prevail, then 
they pass their life here in happiness and harmony 
— ihasters of themselves and orderly — enslaving 
the vicious and emancipating the virtuous elements 
of the soul ; and when the end comes, they are light 
and winged for flight, having conquered in one of 
the three heavenly or truly Olympian victories ; nor 
can human discipline or divine inspiration confer 
any greater blessing on man than this. If, on the 
other hand, they leave philosophy and lead the lower 
life of ambition, then probably, after wine or in 
some other careless hour, the two wanton animals 
take the two souls when off" their guard and bring 
them together, and they accomplish that desire of 
their hearts which to the many is bliss; and this 
having once enjoyed they continue to enjoy, yet 
rarely because they have not the approval of the 
whole soul. They too are dear, but not so dear to 
one another as the others, either at the time of their 
love or afterwards. They consider that they have 
given and taken from each other the most sacred 
pledges, and they may not break them and fall into 



Plato 129 

enmity. At last they pass out of the body, un- 
winged, but eager to soar, and thus obtain no mean 
reward of love and madness. For those who have 
once begun the heavenward pilgrimage may not go 
down again to darkness and the journey beneath the 
earth, but they live in light always ; happy com- 
panions in their pilgrimage, and when the time 
comes at which they receive their wings they have 
the same plumage because of their love. 

Meno^ . . . What do you mean by saying 
that we do not learn, and that what we call learning 
is only a process of recollection? Can you teach me 
how this is? 

Socrates. I told you, Meno, just now that you 
were a rogue, and now you ask whether I can teach 
you, when I am saying that there is no teaching, 
but only recollection ; and thus you imagine that you 
will involve me in a contradiction. 

Men. Indeed, Socrates, I protest that I had no 
such intention. I only ask the question from habit; 
but if you can prove to me that what you say is 
true, I wish that you would. 

Soc. It will be no easy matter, but I will try to 
please you to the utmost of my power. Suppose 
that you call one of your numerous attendants, that 
I may demonstrate on him. 

Men. Certainly. Come hither, boy. 

Soc. He is Greek, and speaks Greek, does he not? 

Men. Yes, indeed; he was born in the house. 



'Plato, Meno, 81e-S6a; Jowett, Op. Cit. 



130 Readings in Philosophy 

Soc. Attend now to the questions which I ask 
him, and observe whether he learns from me or 
only remembers. 

Men. I will. 

Soc. Tell me, boy, do you know that a figure like 
this is a square? 

Boy. I do. 

Soc. And you know that a square figure has 
these four lines equal? 

Boy. Certainly. 

Soc. And these lines which I have drawn through 
the middle of the square are also equal? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. A square may be of any size? 

Boy. Certainly. 

Soc. And if one side of the figure be of two feet, 
and the other side be of two feet, how much will 
the whole be ? Let me explain : if in one direction 
the space was of two feet, and in the other direc- 
tion of one foot, the whole would be of two feet 
taken once? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. But since this side is also of two feet, there 
are twice two feet? 

Boy. There are. 

Soc. Then the square is of twice two feet? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And how many are twice two feet? count 
and tell me. 

Boy. Four, Socrates. 

Soc. And might there not be another square 
twice as large as this, and having like this the lines 
equal ? 



Plato 131 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And of how many feet will that be ? 

Boy. Of eight feet. 

Soc. And now try and tell me the length of the 
line which forms the side of that double square: this 
is two feet — what will that be ? 

Boy. Clearly, Socrates, it will be double. 

Soc. Do you observe, Meno, that I am not teach- 
ing the boy anything, but only asking him questions ; 
and now he fancies that he knows how long a line 
is necessary in order to produce a figure of eight 
square feet; does he not? 
■ Men. Yes. 

Soc. And does he really know? 

Meno. Certainly not. 

Soc. He only guesses that because the square is 
double, the line is double. 

Men. True. 

Soc. Observe him while he recalls the steps in 
regular order. (To the Boy.) Tell me, boy, do 
you assert that a double space comes from a double 
line? Remember that I am not speaking of an 
oblong, but of a figure equal every way, and twice 
the size of this — that is to say of eight feet ; and 
I want to know whether you still say that a double 
square comes from a double line? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. But does not this line become doubled if we 
add another such line here? 

Boy. Certainly. 

Soc. And four such lines will make a space con- 
taining eight feet? 

Boy. Yes. 



132 Readings ifi Philosophy ' 

Soc. Let us describe such a figure: would you 
not say that this is the figure of eight feet? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And are there not these four divisions in 
the figure, each of which is equal to the figure of 
four feet? 

Boy. True. 

Soc. And is not that four times four? 

Boy. Certainly. 

Soc. And four times is not double? 

Boy. No, indeed. 

Soc. But how much? 

Boy. Four times as much. 

Soc. Therefore the double line, boy, has given a 
space, not twice, but four times as much. 

Boy. True. 

Soc. Four times four are sixteen — are they not? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. What line would give you a space of eight 
feet, as this gives one of sixteen feet ; — do you see ? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And the space of four feet is made from 
this half line? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. Good ; and is not a space of eight feet twice 
the size of this, and half the size of the other? 

Boy. Certainly. 

Soc. Such a space, then, will be made out of a 
line greater than this one, and less than that one? 

Boy. Yes ; I think so. 

Soc. Very good ; I like to hear you say what you 
think. And now tell me, is not this a line of two 
feet and that of four? 



Plato 133 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. Then the line which forms the side of eight 
feet ought to be more than this line of two feet, 
and less than the other of four feet? 

Boy. It ought. 

Soc. Try and see if you can tell me how much 
it will be. 

Boy. Three feet. 

Soc. Then if we add a half to this line of two, 
that will be the line of three. Here are two and 
there is one; and on the other side, here are two 
also and there is one : and that makes the figure of 
which you speak? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. But if there are three feet this way and 
three feet that way, the whole space will be three 
times three feet? 

Boy. That is evident. 

Soc. And how much are three times three feet? 

Boy. Nine. 

Soc. And how much is the double of four? 

Boy. Eight. 

Soc. Then the figure of eight is not made out of 
a line of three? 

Boy. No. 

Soc. But from what line ? — tell me exactly ; and 
if you would rather not reckon, try and show me 
the line. 

Boy. Indeed, Socrates, I do not know. 

Soc. Do you see, Meno, what advances he has 
made in his power of recollection? He did not 
know at first, and he does not know now, what is 
the side of a figure of eight feet : but then he thought 



134 Readings in Philosophy 

that he knew, and answered confidently as if he 
knew, and had no difficulty; now he has a difficulty, 
and neither knows nor fancies that he knows. 

Men. True. 

Soc. Is he not better off in knowing his igno- 
rance ? 

Men. I think that he is. 

Soc. If we have made him doubt, and given him 
the 'torpedo's shock', have^ we done him any harm? 

Men. I think not. 

Soc. We have certainly, as would seem, assisted 
him in some degree to the discovery of the truth; 
and now he will wish to remedy his ignorance, but 
then he would have been ready to tell all the world 
again and again that the double space should have 
a double side. 

Men. True. 

Soc. But do you suppose that he would ever 
have enquired into or learned what he fancied that 
he knew, though he was really ignorant of it, until 
he had fallen into perplexity under the idea that 
he did not know, and had desired to know? 

Men. I think not, Socrates. 

Soc. Then he was the better for the torpedo's 
touch ? 

Men. I think so. 

Soc. Mark now the farther development. I shall 
only ask him, and not teach him, and he shall share 
the enquiry with me: and do you watch and see if 
you find me telling or explaining anything to him, 
instead of eliciting his opinion. Tell me, boy, is not 
this a square of four feet which I have drawn? 

Boy. Yes. 



Plato 135 

Soc. And now I add another square equal to 
the former one ? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And a third, which is equal to either of 
them ? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. Suppose that we fill up the vacant corner? 

Bay. Very good. 

Soc. Here, then, there are four equal spaces? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And how many times larger is this space 
than this other? 

Boy. Four times. 

Soc. But it ought to have been twice only, as 
you will remember. 

Boy. True. 

Soc. And does not this line, reaching from cor- 
ner to corner, bisect each of these spaces? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And are there not here four equal lines 
which contain this space? 

Boy. There are. 

Soc. Look and see how much this space is. 

Boy. I do not understand. 

Soc. Has not each interior line cut off half of 
the four spaces? 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And how many such spaces are there in 
this section? 

Boy. Four. 

Soc. And how many in this? 

Boy. Two. 

Soc. And four is how many times two? 



136 Readings in Philosophy 

Boy. Twice. 

Soc. And this space is of how many feet? 

Boy. Of eight feet. 

Soc. And from what line do you get this figure? 

Boy. From this. 

Soc. That is, from the line which extends from 
corner to corner of the figure of four feet. 

Boy. Yes. 

Soc. And that is the line which the learned call 
the diagonal. And if this is the proper name, then 
you, Meno's slave, are prepared to affirm that the 
double space is the square of the diagonal? 

Boy. Certainly, Socrates. 

Soc. What do you say of him, Meno? Were not 
all these answers given out of his own head? 

Men. Yes, they were all his own. 

Soc. And yet, as we were just now saying, he 
did not know? 

Men. True. 

Soc. But still he had in him those notions of 
his — had he not? 

Men. Yes. 

Soc. Then he who does not know may still have 
true notions of that which he does not know? 

Men. He has. 

Soc. And at present these notions have just been 
stirred up in him, as in a dream; but if he were 
frequently asked the same questions, in different 
forms, he would know as well as any one at last? 

Mefi. I dare say. 

Soc. Without any one teaching him he will re- 
cover his knowledge for himself, if he is only asked 
questions ? 



Plato 137 

Men. Yes. 

Soc. And this spontaneous recovery of knowl- 
edge in him is recollection? 

Men. True. 

Soc. And this knowledge which he now has must 
he not either have acquired or always possessed? 

Men. Yes. 

Soc. But if he always possessed this knowledge 
he would always have known; or if he has acquired 
the knowledge he could not have acquired it in this 
life, unless he has been taught geometry; for he 
may be made to do the same with all geometry and 
every other branch of knowledge. Now, has any 
one ever taught him all this? You must know 
about him, if, as you say, he was born and bred in 
your house. 

Men. And I am certain that no one ever did 
teach him. 

Soc. And yet he has the knowledge? 

Men. The fact, Socrates, is undeniable. 

Soc. But if he did not acquire the knowledge in 
this life, then he must have had and learned it at 
some other time? 

Men. Clearly he must. 

B. The Allegory of the Cave. 

This is another very famous passage from the 
Republic bearing upon Plato's theory of Knowl- 
edge: 

Now^ then, I proceeded to say, go on to compare 
our natural condition, so far as education and 

^ Plato, Republic, Book VII, 514a-519b; Davies and 
Vaughan, Op. Cit. 



138 Readings in Philosophy 

ignorance are concerned, to a state of things like 
the following. Imagine a number of men living in 
an underground cavernous chamber, with an en- 
trance open to the light, extending along the entire 
length of the cavern, in which they have been con- 
fined, from their childhood, with their legs and 
necks so shackled, that they are obliged to sit still 
and look straight forwards, because their chains 
render it impossible for them to turn their heads 
round : and imagine a bright fire burning some way 
off, above and behind them, and an elevated road- 
way passing between the fire and the prisoners, 
with a low wall built along it, like the screens which 
conjurors put up in front of their audience, and 
above which they exhibit their wonders. 

I have it, he replied. 

Also figure to yourself a number of persons walk- 
ing behind this wall, and carrying with them 
statues of men, and images of other animals, 
wrought in wood and stone and all kinds of ma- 
terials, together with various other articles, which 
overtop the wall ; and, as you might expect, let some 
of the passers-by be talking, and others silent. 

You are describing a strange scene, and strange 
prisoners. 

They resemble us, I replied. For let me ask you, 
in the first place, whether persons so confined could 
have seen anything of themselves or of each other, 
beyond the shadows throMm by the fire upon the 
part of the cavern facing them ? 

Certainly not, if you suppose them to have been 
compelled all their lifetime to keep their heads un- 
moved. 



Plato 139 

And is not their knowledge of the things carried 
past them equally limited? 

Unquestionably it is. 

And if they were able to converse with one an- 
other, do you not think that they would be in the 
habit of giving names to the objects which they 
saw before them? 

Doubtless they would. 

Again; if their prison-house returned an echo 
from the part facing them, whenever one of the 
passers-by opened his lips, to what, let me ask you, 
could they refer the voice, if not to the shadow 
which was passing? 

Unquestionably they would refer it to that. 

Then surely such persons would hold the shadows 
of those manufactured articles to be the only reali- 
ties. 

Without a doubt they would. 

Now consider what would happen if the course 
of nature brought them a release from their fetters, 
and a remedy for their foolishness, in the follow- 
ing manner. Let us suppose that one of them has 
been released, and compelled suddenly to stand up, 
and turn his neck around and walk with open eyes 
towards the light; and let us suppose that he goes 
through all these actions with pain, and that the 
dazzling splendour renders him incapable of dis- 
cerning those objects of which he used formerly 
to see the shadows. What answer should you ex- 
pect him to make, if some one were to tell him in 
those days he was watching foolish phantoms, but 
that now he is somewhat nearer to reality, and is 
turned towards things more real, and sees more 



140 Readings in Philosophy 

correctly; above all, if he were to point out to him 
the several objects that are passing- by, and ques- 
tion him, and compel him to answer what they are? 
Should you not expect him to be puzzled, and to 
regard his old visions as truer than the objects now 
forced upon his notice? 

Yes, much truer. 

And if he were further compelled to gaze at the 
light itself, would not his eyes, think you, be dis- 
tressed, and would he not shrink and turn away to 
the things which he could see distinctly, and con- 
sider them to be really clearer than the things 
pointed out to him? 

Just so. 

And if some one were to drag him violently up 
the rough and steep ascent from the cavern, and 
refuse to let him go till he had drawn him out into 
the light of the sun, would he not, think you, be 
vexed and indignant at such treatment, and on 
reaching the light, would he not find his eyes so 
dazzled by the glare as to be incapable of making 
out so much as one of the objects that are now 
called true? 

Yes, he would find it so at first. 

Hence, I suppose, habit will be necessary to en- 
able him to perceive objects in that upper world. 
At first he will be most successful in distinguishing 
shadows ; then he will discern the reflections of men 
and other things in water, and afterwards the reali- 
ties; and after this he will raise his eyes to en- 
counter the light of the moon and stars, finding it 
less difficult to study the heavenly bodies and the 



Plato 141 

heaven itself by night, than the sun and the sun's 
light by day. 

Doubtless. 

Last of all, I imagine, he will be able to observe 
and contemplate the nature of the sun, not as it 
appears in water or on alien ground, but as it is 
in itself in its own territory. 

Of course. 

His next step will be to draw the conclusion, that 
the sun is the author of the seasons and the years, 
and the guardian of all things in the visible world, 
and in a manner the cause of all those things which 
he and his companions used to see. 

Obviously, this will be his next step. 

What then? When he recalls to mind his first 
habitation, and the wisdom of the place, and his old 
fellow-prisoners, do you not think he will congratu- 
late himself on the change, and pity them? 

Assuredly he will. 

And if it was their practice in those days to re- 
ceive honour and commendations one from another, 
and to give prizes to him who had the keenest eye 
for a passing object, and who remembered best all 
that used to precede and follow and accompany it, 
and from these data divined most ably what was 
going to come next, do you fancy that he will covet 
these prizes, and envy those who receive honour 
and exercise authority among them? Do you not 
rather imagine that he will feel what Homer de- 
scribes, and wish extremely 

' To drudge on the lands of a master, 
Under a portionless wight,' 



142 Readings in Philosophy 

and be ready to go through anything, rather than 
entertain those opinions, and live in that fashion? 

For my own part, he replied, I am quite of that 
opinion. I believe he would consent to go through 
anything rather than live in that way. 

And now consider what would happen if such a 
man were to descend again and seat himself on his 
old seat? Coming so suddenly out of the sun, would 
he not find his eyes blinded with the gloom of the 
place? 

Certainly, he would. 

And if he were forced to deliver his opinion again, 
touching the shadows aforesaid, and to enter the 
lists against those who had always been prisoners, 
while his sight continued dim, and his eyes un- 
steady, — and if this process of initiation lasted a 
considerable time, — would he not be made a laugh- 
ingstock, and would it not be said of him, that he 
had gone up only to come back again with his eye- 
sight destroyed, and that it was not worth while 
even to attempt the ascent? And if any one en- 
deavoured to set them free and carry them to the 
light, would they not go so far as to put him to 
death, if they could only manage to get him into 
their power? 

Yes, that they would. 

Now this imaginary case, my dear Glaucon, you 
must apply in all its parts to our former state- 
ments, by comparing the region which the eye re- 
veals, to the prison-house, and the light of the fire 
therein to the power of the sun; and if, by the up- 
ward ascent and the contemplation of the upper 
world, you understand the mounting of the soul into 



Plato 143 

the intellectual region, you will hit the tendency of 
my own surmises, since you desire to be told what 
they are; though, indeed, God only knows whether 
they are correct. But, be that as it may, the view 
which I take of the subject is to the following effect. 
In the world of knowledge, the essential Form of 
Good is the limit of our inquiries, and can barely be 
perceived ; but, when perceived, we cannot help con- 
cluding that it is in every case the source of all that 
is bright and beautiful, — in the visible world giving 
birth to light and its master, and in the intellectual 
world dispensing, immediately and with full au- 
thority, truth and reason;— and that whosoever 
would act wisely, either in private or in public, must 
set this Form of Good before his eyes. 

To the best of my power, said he, I quite agree 
with you. 

That being the case, I continued, pray agree with 
me on another point, and do not be surprised, that 
those who have climbed so high are unwilling to 
take a part in the affairs of men, because their souls 
are ever loath to desert that upper region. For how 
could it be otherwise, if the preceding simile is in- 
deed a correct representation of their case? 

True, it could scarcely be otherwise. 

Well : do you think it a marvelous^ thing, that a 
person, who has just quitted the contemplation of 
divine objects for the study of human infirmities, 
should betray awkwardness, and appear very ridic- 
ulous, when with his sight still dazed, and before 
he has become sufficiently habituated to the darkness 
that reigns around, he finds himself compelled to 
contend in courts of law, or elsewhere, about the 



144 Readings in Philosophy 

shadows of justice, or images which throw the 
shadows, and to enter the lists in questions involv- 
ing- the arbitrary suppositions entertained by those 
who have never yet had a glimpse of the essential 
features of justice? 

No, it is anything but marvellous. 

Right: for a sensible man will recollect that the 
eyes may be confused in two distinct ways and from 
two distinct causes, — that is to say, by sudden 
transitions either from light to darkness, or from 
darkness to light. And, believing the same idea to 
be applicable to the soul, whenever such a person 
sees a case in which the mind is perplexed and un- 
able to distinguish .objects, he will not laugh irra- 
tionally, but he will examine whether it has just 
quitted a brighter life, and has been blinded by the 
novelty of darkness, or whether it has come from 
the depths of ignorance into a more brilliant life, 
and has been dazzled by the unusual splendour; 
and not till then will he congratulate the one upon 
its life and condition, and compassionate the other; 
and if he chooses to laugh at it, such laughter will 
be less ridiculous than that which is raised at the 
expense of the soul that has descended from the 
light of a higher region. 

You speak with great judgment. 

Hence, if this be true, we cannot avoid adopting 
the belief, that the real nature of education is at 
variance with the account given of it by certain of 
its professors, who pretend, I believe, to infuse into 
the mind a knowledge of which it was destitute, just 
as sight might be instilled into blinded eyes, 

True ; such are their pretensions. 



Plato 145 

Whereas, our present argument shews us that 
there is a faculty residing in the soul of each per- 
son, and an instrument enabling each of us to learn ; 
and that, just as we might suppose it to be impos- 
sible to turn the eye round from darkness to light 
without turning the whole body, so must this fac- 
ulty, or this instrument, be wheeled round, in com- 
pany with the entire soul, from the perishing world, 
until it be enabled to endure the contemplation of 
the real world and the brightest part thereof, which, 
according to us, is the Form of Good. Am I not 
right ? 

You are. ,. 

Hence, I continued, this very process of revolu- 
tion must give rise to an art, teaching in what way 
the change will most easily and most effectually be 
brought about. Its object will not be to generate 
in the person the power of seeing. On the contrary, 
it assumes that he possesses it, though he is turned 
in a wrong direction, and does not look towards the 
right quarter ; and its aim is to remedy this defect. 

So it would appear. 

Hence, while, on the one hand, the other so-called 
virtues of the soul seem to resemble those of the 
body, inasmuch as they really do not pre-exist in 
the soul, but are formed in it in the course of time 
by habit and exercise ; the virtue of wisdom, on the 
other hand, does most certainly appertain, as it 
would appear, to a more divine substance, which 
never loses its energy, but by change of position be- 
comes useful and serviceable, or else remains use- 
less and injurious. For you must, ere this,- have 



146 Readings in Philosophy 

noticed how keen-sighted are the puny souls of those 
who have the reputation of being clever but vicious, 
and how sharply they see through the things to 
which they are directed, thus proving that their 
powers of vision are by no means feeble, though 
they have been compelled to become the servants 
of wickedness, so that the more sharply they see, 
the more numerous are the evils which they work. 

Yes, indeed it is the case. 

But, I proceeded, if from earliest childhood these 
characters had been shorn and stripped of those 
leaden, earth-born weights, which grow and cling 
to the pleasures of eating and gluttonous enjoy- 
ments of a similar nature, and keep the eye of the 
soul turned upon the things below ; — if, I repeat, 
they had been released from these snares, and 
turned round to look at objects that are true, then 
these very same souls of these very same men 
would have had as keen an eye for such pursuits 
as they actually have for those in which they are 
now engaged. 

Yes, probably it would be so. 

C. Cosmology 

This passage sets forth Plato's view of the es- 
sence, and process of creation of the universe, and 
of the stages of existence exemplified by the forms 
of life upon the earth: 

First ^ then, in my judgment, we must make a 
distinction and ask. What is that which always is 
and has no becoming; and what is that which is 



Plato, Timaeus, 27e-34b; Jowett, Op. Cit. 



Plato 147 

always becoming and never is? That which is ap- 
prehended by intelligence and reason is always in 
the same state; but that which is conceived by 
opinion with the help of sensation and without 
reason, is always in a process of becoming and 
perishing and never really is. Now everything that 
becomes or is created must of necessity be created 
by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be 
created. The work of the creator, whenever he 
looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form 
and nature of his work after an unchangeable pat- 
tern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; 
but when he looks to the created only, and uses a 
created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the 
heaven then or the world, whether called by this or 
by any other more appropriate name — assuming 
the name, I am asking a question which has to be 
asked at the beginning of an enquiry about any- 
thing — was the world, I say, always in existence 
and without beginning? or created, and had it a 
beginning? Created, I reply, being visible and 
tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; 
and all sensible things are apprehended by opinion 
and sense and are in a process of creation and 
created. Now that which is created must, as we 
affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the 
father and maker of all this universe is past find- 
ing out; and even if we found him, to tell of him 
to all men would be impossible. And there is still 
a question to be asked about him: Which of the 
patterns had the artificer in view when he made the 
world, — the pattern of the unchangeable, or of 
that which is created? If the world be indeed fair 



148 Readings in Philosophy 

and the artificer good, it is manifest that he must 
have looked to that which is eternal; but if what 
cannot be said without blasphemy is true, then to 
the created pattern. Every one will see that he 
must have looked to the eternal; for the world is 
the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes. 
And having been created in this way, the world has 
been framed in the likeness of that which is ap- 
prehended by reason and mind and is unchange- 
able, and must therefore of necessity, if this is ad- 
mitted, be a copy of something. Now it is all- 
important that the beginning of everything should 
be according to nature. And in speaking of the 
copy and the original we may assume that words 
are akin to the matter which they describe; when 
they relate to the lasting and permanent and in- 
telligible, they ought to be lasting and unalterable, 
and — as far as their nature allows, irrefutable and 
immovable — nothing less. But when they express 
only the copy or likeness and not the eternal things 
themselves, they need only be likely and analogous 
to the real words. As being is to becoming, so is 
truth to belief. If then, Socrates, amid the many 
opinions about the gods and the generation of the 
universe, we are not able to give notions which are 
altogether and in every respect exact and consistent 
with one another, do not be surprised. Enough, 
if we adduce probabilities as likely as any others; 
for we must remember that I who am the speaker, 
and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, 
and we ought to accept the tale which is probable 
and enquire no further. 



Plato 149 

Soc. Excellent, Timaeus ; and we will do pre- 
cisely as you bid us. The prelude is charming, and 
is already accepted by us — may we beg of you to 
proceed to the strain? 

Tim. Let me tell you then why the creator made 
this world of generation. He was good, and the 
good can never have any jealousy of anything. And 
being free from jealousy, he desired that all things 
should be as like himself as they could be. This is 
in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the 
world, as we shall do well in believing on the testi- 
mony of wise men : God desired that all things 
should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was 
attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible 
sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and 
disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought 
order, considering that this was in every way bet- 
ter than the other. Now the deeds of the best 
could never be or have been other than the fairest; 
and the creator, reflecting on the things which are 
by nature visible, found that no unintelligent crea- 
ture taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent 
taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be 
present in anything that was devoid of soul. For 
which reason, when he was framing the universe, 
he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that 
he might be the creator of a work which was by 
nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the 
language of probability, we may say that the world 
became a living creature truly endowed with soul 
and intelligence by the providence of God. 

This being supposed, let us proceed to the next 
stage: in the likeness of what animal did the 



150 Readmgs in Philosophy 

Creator make the world? It would be an unworthy 
thing to liken it to any nature which exists as a 
part only; for nothing can be beautiful which is 
like any imperfect thing; but let us suppose the 
world to be the very image of that whole of which 
all other animals both individually and in their 
tribes are portions. For the original of the universe 
contains in itself all intelligible beings, just as this 
world comprehends us and all other visible crea- 
tures. For the Deity, intending to make this world 
like the fairest and most perfect of intelligible 
beings, framed one visible animal comprehending 
within itself all other animals of a kindred nature. 
Are we right in saying that there is one world, or 
that they are many and infinite? There must be 
one only, if the created copy is to accord with the 
original. For that which includes all other intelligi- 
ble creatures cannot have a second or companion; 
in that case there would be need of another living 
being which would include both, and of which they 
would be parts, and the likeness would be more 
truly said to resemble not them, but that other 
which included them. In order then that the world 
might be solitary, like the perfect animal, the 
creator made not two worlds or an infinite number 
of them; but there is and ever^will be one only be- 
gotten and created heaven. 

Now that which is created is of necessity cor- 
poreal, and also visible and tangible. And nothing 
is visible where there is no fire, or tangible which 
has no solidity, and nothing is solid without earth. 
Wherefore also God in the beginning of creation 
made the body of the universe to consist of fire and 



Plato 151 

earth. But two things cannot be rightly put to- 
gether without a third ; there must be some bond of 
union between them. And the fairest bond is that 
which makes the most complete fusion of itself and 
the things which it combines; and proportion is 
best adapted to effect such a union. For when- 
ever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, 
there is a mean, which is to the last term what the 
first term is to it; and again, when the mean is to 
the first term as the last term is to the mean, — then 
the mean becoming first and last, and the first and 
last both becoming means, they will all of them of 
necessity, come to be the same, and having beco^me 
the same with one another will be all one. If the 
universal frame had been created a surface only 
and having no depth, a single mean would have 
sufficed to bind together itself and the other terms ; 
but now, as the world must be solid, and solid 
bodies are always compacted not by one mean but 
by two, God placed water and air in the mean be- 
tween fire and earth, and made them to have the 
same proportion so far as was possible (as fire is 
to air so is air to water, and as air is to water so 
is water to earth) ; and thus he bound and put to- 
gether a visible and tangible heaven. And for these 
reasons, and out of such elements which are in 
number four, the body of the world was created, 
and it was harmonized by proportion, and therefore 
has the spirit of friendship ; and having been recon- 
ciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of 
any other than the framer. 

Now the creation took up the whole of* each of 
the four elements ; for the Creator compounded the 



152 Readings in Philosophy 

world out of all the fire and all the water and all 
the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of 
them nor any power of them outside. His intention 
was, in the first place, that the animal should be as 
far as possible a perfect whole and of perfect parts : 
secondly, that it should be one, leaving no remnants 
out of which another such world might be created: 
and also that it should be free from old age and 
unaffected by disease. Considering that if heat and 
cold and other powerful forces which unite bodies 
surround and attack them from without when they 
are unprepared, they decompose them, and by bring- 
ing diseases and old age upon them, make them waste 
away — for this cause and on these grounds he 
made the world one whole, having every part en- 
tire, and being therefore perfect and liable to old 
age and disease. And he gave to the world the 
figure which was suitable and also natural. Now 
to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, 
that figure was suitable which comprehends within 
itself all other figures. Wherefore he made the 
world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, 
having its extremes in every direction equidistant 
from the centre, the most perfect and the most like 
itself of all figures ; for he considered that the like 
is infinitely fairer than the unlike. This he finished 
off, making the surface smooth all round for many 
reasons; in the first place, because the living being 
had no need of eyes when there was nothing re- 
maining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when 
there was nothing to be heard; and there was no 
surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would 
there have been any use of organs by the help of 



Plato 153 

which he might receive his food or get rid of what 
he had already digested, since there was nothing 
which went from him or came into him: for there 
was nothing beside him. Of design he was created 
thus, his own waste providing his own food, and 
all that he did or suffered taking place in and by 
himself. For the Creator conceived that a being 
which was self-sufRcient would be far more excel- 
lent than one which lacked anything; and, as he 
had no need to take anything or defend himself 
against any one, the Creator did not think it neces- 
sary to bestow upon him hands : nor had he any 
need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walk- 
ing; but the movement suited to -his spherical form 
was assigned to him, being of all the seven that 
which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence ; 
and he was made to move in the same manner and 
on the same spot, within his own limits revolving 
in a circle. All the other six motions were taken 
away from him, and he was made not to partake 
of their deviations. And as this circular move- 
ment required no feet, the universe was created 
without legs and without feet. 

Such was the whole plan of the eternal God 
about the god that was to be, to whom for this 
reason he gave a body, smooth and even, having a 
surface in every direction equidistant from the 
centre, a body entire and perfect, and formed out 
of perfect bodies. And in the centre he put the 
soul, which he diffused throughout the body, making 
it also to be the exterior environment of it; and he 
made the universe a circle moving in a circle, one 
and solitary, yet by reason of its excellence able 



154 Readings m Philosophy ■ 

to converse with itself, and needing no other friend- 
ship or acquaintance. Having these purposes in 
view he ci'eated the world a blessed god. 

Now ' when the Creator had framed the soul ac- 
cording to his will, he formed within her the cor- 
poreal universe, and brought the two together, and 
united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused 
everywhere from the centre to the circumference 
of heaven, of which also she is the external en- 
velopment, herself turning in herself, began a di- 
vine beginning of never-ceasing and rational life 
enduring throughout all time. The body of heaven 
is visible, but the soul is invisible, and partakes of 
reason and harmony, and being made by the best 
of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best 
of things created. And because she is composed of 
the same and of the other and of the essence, these 
three, and is divided and united in due proportion, 
and in her revolutions returns upon herself, the 
soul, when touching anything which has essence, 
whether dispersed in parts or undivided, is stirred 
through all her powers, to declare the sameness or 
difference of that thing and some other ; and to what 
individuals are related, and by what affected, and in 
what way and how and when, both in the world of 
generation and in the world of immutable being. 
And when reason, which works with equal truth, 
whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of 
the same — in voiceless silence holding her onward 
course in the sphere of the self-moved — when rea- 
son, I say, is hovering around the sensible world 



' Ibid. 36cl-3^ 



Plato 155 

and when the circle of the diverse also moving truly 
imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, 
then arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. 
But when reason is concerned with the rational, and 
the circle of the same moving smoothly declares it, 
then intelligence and knowledge are necessarily per- 
fected. And if any one affirms that in which these 
two are found to be other than the soul, he will say 
the very opposite of the truth. 

When the father and creator saw the creature 
which he had made moving and living, the created 
image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced, a-nd in his 
joy determined to make the copy still more like the 
original ; and as this was eternal, he sought to make 
the universe eternal, so far as might be. Now the 
nature of the ideal being was everlasting, but to 
bestow this attribute in its fulness upon a creature 
was impossible. Wherefore he resolved to have a 
moving image of eternity, and when he set in order 
the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving 
according to number, while eternity itself rests in 
unity ; and this image we call time. For there were 
no days and nights and months and years before 
the heaven was created, but when he constructed 
the heaven he created them also. They are all parts 
of time, and the past and future are created species 
of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly trans- 
fer to the eternal essence; for we say that he 'was', 
he Ms', he 'will be', but the truth is that 'is' alone 
is properly attributed to him, and that 'was' and 
'will be' are only to be spoken of becoming in time, 
for they are motions, but that which is immovably 
the same cannot become older or younger by time, 



156 Readings in Philosophy 

nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, 
older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of 
those states which affect moving and sensible things 
and of which generation is the cause. These are 
the forms of time, which imitates eternity and re- 
volves according to a law of number. Moreover, 
when we say that what has become is become and 
what becomes is becoming, and that what will be- 
come is about to become and that the non-existent is 
non-existent, — all these are inaccurate modes of 
expression. But perhaps this whole subject will 
be more suitably discussed on some other occasion. 
Time, then, and the heaven came into being at 
the same instant in order that, having been created 
together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of 
them, they might be dissolved together. It was 
framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that 
it might resemble this as far as was possible; for 
the pattern exists from eternity, and the created 
heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. 
Such was the mind and thought of God in the crea- 
tion of time. The sun and moon and five other 
stars, which are called the planets, were created by 
him in order to distinguish and preserve the num- 
bers of time; and when he had made their several 
bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the 
circle of the other was revolving, — in seven orbits 
seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit 
nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second 
orbit above the earth ; then came the morning star 
and the star sacred to Hermes, moving in orbits 
which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in 
an opposite direction ; and this is the reason why 



Plato 157 

the sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are 
overtaken by each other. To enumerate the places 
which he assigned to the other stars, and to give 
all the reasons why he assigned them, although a 
secondary matter, would give more trouble than the 
primary. These things at some future time, when 
we are at leisure, may have the consideration which 
they deserve, but not at present. 

Thus 1 far and until the birth of time the created 
universe was made in the likeness of the original, 
but inasmuch as all animals were not yet compre- 
hended therein, it was still unlike. What remained, 
the creator then proceeded to fashion after the na- 
ture of the pattern. Now as in the ideal animal 
the mind perceives ideas or species of a certain na- 
ture and number, he thought that this created an- 
imal ought to have species of a like nature and 
number. There are four such; one of them is the 
heavenly race of the gods ; another, the race of birds 
whose way is in the air; the third the watery 
species, and the fourth, the pedestrian and land 
creatures. Of the heavenly and divine, he created 
the greater part out of fire, that they might be the 
brightest of all things and fairest to behold, and 
he fashioned them after the likeness of the uni- 
verse in the figure of a circle, and made them fol- 
low the intelligent motion of the supreme distribut- 
ing them over the whole circumference of heaven, 
which was to be a true cosmos or glorious world 
spangled with them all over. And he gave to each 
of them two movements: the first, a movement on 



'Ibid., 39e-41d. 



158 Readings in Philosophy 

the same spot after the same manner, whereby they 
ever continue to think consistently the same 
thoughts about the same things; the second, a for- 
ward movement, in which they are controlled by 
the revolution of the same and the like; but by the 
other five motions they were unaffected, in order 
that each of them might attain the highest per- 
fection. And for this reason the fixed stars were 
created, to be divine and eternal animals, ever- 
abiding and revolving after the same manner and 
on the same spot; and the other stars which re- 
verse their motion and are subject to deviations of 
this kind, were created in the manner already de- 
scribed. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging 
around the pole which is extended through the uni- 
verse, he framed to be the guardian and artificer 
of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are 
in the interior of heaven. Vain would be the at- 
tempt to tell all the figures of them circling as in 
dance, and their juxtapositions, and the return of 
them in their revolutions upon themselves, and their 
approximations, and to say which of these deities 
in their conjunctions meet, and which of them are 
in opposition, and in what order they get behind 
and before one another, and when they are severally 
eclipsed to our sight and again reappear, sending 
terrors and intimations of the future to those who 
cannot calculate their movements — to attempt to 
tell of all this without a visible representation of 
the heavenly system would be labor in vain. Enough 
on this head ; and now let what we have said about 
the nature of the created and visible gods have an 
end. 



Plato 159 

To know or tell the origin of the other divinities 
is beyond us, and we must accept the traditions of 
the men of old time who affirm themselves to be the 
offspring of the gods — that is what they say — 
and they must surely have known their own an- 
cestors. How can we doubt the word of the chil- 
dren of the gods? Although they give no probable 
or certain proofs, still, as they declare that they 
are speaking of what took place in their own family, 
we must conform to custom and believe them. In 
this manner, then, according to them, the genealogy 
of these gods is to be received and set forth. 

Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth 
and Heaven, and from these sprang Phorcys and 
Cronos and Rhea, and all that generation ; and from 
Cronos and Rhea sprang Zeus and Here, and all 
those who are said to be their brethren, and others 
who were the children of these. 

Now, w^hen all of them, both those who visibly 
appear in their revolutions as well as those other 
gods who are of a more retiring nature, had come 
into being, the creator of the universe addressed 
them in these words : 'Gods, children of gods, who 
are my works, and of whom I am the artificer and 
father, my creations are indissoluble, if so I will. 
All that is bound may be undone, but only an evil 
being would wish to undo that which is harmonious 
and happy. Wherefore, since ye are but creatures, 
ye are not altogether immortal and indissoluble, 
but ye shall certainly not be dissolved, nor be liable 
to the fate of death, having in my will a greater 
and mightier bond than those with which ye were 
bound at the time of your birth. And now listen 



160 Readings in Philosophy 

to my instructions : — Three tribes of mortal beings 
remain to be created — without them the universe 
will be incomplete, for it will not contain every 
kind of animal which it ought to contain, if it is 
to be perfect. On the other hand, if they were 
created by me and received life at my hands, they 
would be on an equality with the gods. In order 
then that they may be mortal, and that this uni- 
verse may be truly universal, do ye, according to 
your natures, betake yourselves to the formation of 
animals, imitating the power which was shown by 
me in creating you. The part of them worthy of 
the name immortal, which is called divine and is 
the guiding principle of those who are willing to 
follow justice and you — of that divine part I will 
myself sow the seed, and having made a beginning, 
I will hand the work over to you. And do ye then 
interweave the mortal with the immortal, and make 
and beget living creatures, and give them food, and 
make them to grow, and receive them again in 
death. 

D. Teleology 

Plato states' here his belief, with the reasons 
therefor, in an underlying purpose in the universe: 

Nor 1 am I any longer satisfied that I understand 
the reason why one or anything else is either gen- 
erated or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my 
mind some confused notion of a new method, and 
can never admit the other. 



' Plato, Pkaedo, 97c-99d ; Jowett, Op, Cit. 



Plato 161 

Then I heard some one reading, as he said, from 
a book of Anaxagoras, that mind was the disposer 
and cause of all, and I was delighted at this notion, 
which. appeared quite admirable, and I said to my- 
self: If mind is the disposer, mind will dispose all 
for the best, and put each particular in the best 
place; and I argued that if any one desired to find 
out the cause of the generation or destruction or 
existence of anything, he must find out what state 
of being or doing or suff'ering was best for that 
thing, and therefore a man had only to consider the 
best for himself and others, and then he would also 
know the worse, since the same science compre- 
hended both. And I rejoiced to think that I had 
found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of ex- 
istence such as I desired, and I imagined that he 
would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round ; 
and whichever was true, he would proceed to ex- 
plain the cause and the necessity of this being so, 
and then he would teach me the nature of the best 
and show that this was best; and if he said that 
the earth was in the centre, he would further ex- 
plain that this position was the best, and I should 
be satisfied with the explanation given, and not 
want any other sort of cause. And I thought that 
I would then go on and ask him about the sun and 
moon and stars, and that he would explain to me 
their comparative swiftness, and their returnings 
and various states, active and passive, and how all 
of them were for the best. For I could not imagine 
that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, 
he would give any other account of their being as 



162 Readings in Philosophy 

they are, except that this was best; and I thought 
that when he had explained to me in detail the 
cause of each and the cause of all, he would go on 
to explain to me what was best for each and what 
was good for all. These hopes I would not have 
sold for a large sum of money, and I seized the 
books and read them as fast as I could in my eager- 
ness to know the better and the worse. 

What expectations I had formed, and how griev- 
ously was I disappointed ! As I proceeded, I found my 
philosopher altogether forsaking mind or any other 
principle of order, but having recourse to air, and 
ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might 
compare him to a person who began by maintaining 
generally that mind is the cause of the actions of 
Socrates, but who, when he endeavoured to explain 
the causes of my several actions in detail, went on 
to show that I sit here because my body is made up 
of bones and muscles ; and the bones, as he would 
say, are hard and have joints which divide them, 
and the muscles are elastic, and they cover the bones, 
which have also a covering or environment of flesh 
and skin which contains them ; and as the bones are 
lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxa- 
tion of the muscles, I am able to bend my limbs, 
and this is why I am sitting here in a curved pos- 
ture — that is what he would say ; and he would 
have a similar explanation of my talking to you, 
which he would attribute to sound, and air, and 
hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other 
causes of the same sort, forgetting to mention the 
true cause, which is, that the Athenians have 



Plato 163 

thought fit to condemn me, and accordingly I have 
thought it better and more right to remain here 
and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think 
that these muscles and bones of mine would have 
gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia — by the 
dog they would, if they had been moved only by 
their own idea of what was best, and if I had not 
chosen the better and nobler part, instead of playing 
truant and running away, of enduring any punish- 
ment which the state inflicts. There is surely a 
strange confusion of causes and conditions in all 
this. It may be said, indeed, that without bones 
and muscles and the other parts of the body I can- 
not execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I 
do because of them, and that is the way in which 
mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is 
a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I won- 
der that they cannot distinguish the cause from the 
condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, 
are always mistaking and misnaming. And thus 
one man makes a vortex all round, and steadies the 
earth by the heaven ; another gives the air as a sup- 
port to the earth, which is a sort of broad trough. 
Any power which in arranging them as they are 
arranges them for the best never enters into their 
minds ; and instead of finding any superior strength 
in it, they rather expect to discover another Atlas 
of the world who is stronger and more everlasting 
and more containing than the good ; — of the ob- 
ligatory and containing power of the good they think 
nothing; and yet this is the principle which I would 
fain learn if any one would teach me. 



164 Readings in Philosophy 

E. The Idea of the Good 

This is another expression of Plato's conviction 
that the universe is a moral order, and possessed 
of ethical meaning: 

Do ^ you suppose that any one would let you go 
without asking what that science is which you call 
the highest, and of what it treats? 

Certainly not, I replied ; so put the question your- 
self. Assuredly you have heard the answer many 
a time; but at this moment either you have for- 
gotten it, or else you intend to find me employment 
by raising objections. I incline to the latter opinion ; 
for you have often been told that the essential Form 
of the Good is the highest object of science, and 
that this essence, by blending with just things and 
all other created objects, renders them useful and 
advantageous. And at this moment you can 
scarcely doubt that I am going to assert this, and 
to assert, besides, that we are not sufficiently ac- 
quainted with this essence. And if so, — if, I say, 
we know everything else perfectly, without know- 
ing this, — you are aware that it will profit us 
nothing; just as it would be equally profitless to 
possess everything without possessing what is 
good. Or do you imagine it would be a gain to 
possess all possessible things, with the single ex- 
ception of things good ; or to apprehend every con- 
ceivable object, without apprehending what is 
good, — in other words, to be destitute of every 
good and beautiful conception? 



^ Plato, Republic, Book VI, 504e-506b; Davies and 
Vaughan, Op. Cit. 



Plato 165 

Not I, believe me. 

Moreover, you doubtless know besides, that the 
chief good is supposed by the multitude to be pleas- 
ure, — by the more enlightened, insight? 

Of course I know that. 

And you are aware, my friend, that the advocates 
of this latter opinion are unable to explain what 
they mean by insight, and are compelled at last to 
explain it as insight into that which is good. 

Yes, they are in a ludicrous difficulty. 

They certainly are: since they reproach us with 
ignorance of that which is good, and then speak to 
us the next moment as if we knew what it was. 
For they tell us that the chief good is insight into 
good, assuming that we understand their meaning, 
as soon as they have uttered the term 'good.' 

It is perfectly true. 

Again : are not those, whose definition identifies 
pleasure with good, just as much infected with error 
as the preceding? For they are forced to admit 
the existence of evil pleasures, are they not? 

Certainly they are. 

From which it follows, I should suppose, that 
they must admit the same thing to be both good and 
evil. Does it not? 

Certainly it does. 

Then is it not evident that this is a subject often 
and severely disputed? 

Doubtless it is. 

Once more : is it not evident, that though many 
persons would be ready to do and seem to do, or to 
possess and seem to possess, what seems just and 
beautiful, without really being so; yet, when you 



166 Readings in Philosophy 

come to things good, no one is content to acquire 
what only seems such ; on the contrary, everybody 
seeks the reality, and semblances are here, if no- 
where else, treated with universal contempt? 

Yes, that is quite evident. 

This good, then, which every soul pursues, as the 
end of all its actions, divining its existence, but per- 
plexed and unable to apprehend satisfactorily its 
nature, or to enjoy that steady confidence in relation 
to it, which it does enjoy in relation to other things, 
and therefore doomed to forfeit any advantage 
which it might have derived from those same things ; 
— are we to maintain that, on a subject of such 
overwhelming im.portance, the blindness we have 
described is a desirable feature in the character of 
those best members of the state in whose hands 
everything is to be placed? 

Most certainly not. 

At any rate, if it be not known in what way just 
things and beautiful things come to be also good, 
I imagine that such things will not possess a very 
valuable guardian in the person of him who is igno- 
rant on this point. And I surmise that none will 
know the just and the beautiful satisfactorily till he 
knows the good. 

Now,- this power, which supplies the objects of 
real knowledge with the truth that is in them, and 
which renders to him who knows them the faculty of 
knowing them, you must consider to be the essential 
Form of Good, and you must regard it as the origin 
of science, and of truth, so far as the latter comes 



'Ibid., 508e-509c. 



Plato 167 

within the range of knowledge : and though knowl- 
edge and truth are both very beautiful things, you 
will be right in looking upon good as something 
distinct from them, and even more beautiful. And 
just as, in the analogous case, it is right to regard 
light and vision as resembling the sun, but wrong 
to identify them with the sun ; so, in the case of 
science and truth, it is right to regard both of them 
as resembling good, but wrong to identify either of 
them with good ; -because, on the contrary, the qual- 
ity of the good ought to have a still higher value 
set upon it. 

That implies an inexpressible beauty, if it not 
only is the source of science and truth, but also sur- 
passes them in beauty; for, I presume, you do not 
mean by it pleasure. 

Hush ! I exclaimed, not a word of that. But you 
had better examine the illustration further, as fol- 
lows. 

Shew me how. 

I think you will admit that the sun ministers to 
visible objects, not only the faculty of being seen, 
but also their vitality, growth, and nutriment, though 
it is not itself equivalent to vitality. 

Of course it is not. 

Then admit that, in like manner, the objects of 
knowledge not only derive from the good the gift 
of being known, but are further endowed by it with 
a real and essential existence; though the good, far 
from being identical with real existence, actually 
transcends it in dignity and power. 



168 Readings in Philosophy 

F. Psychology 

Plato's psychological theory both indicates the 

place of the human being in the scheme of the world 

"and also serves as a basis for his theory of virtue: 

First/ then, the gods, imitating the spherical 
shape of the universe, enclosed the two divine 
courses in a spherical body, that namely, which we 
now term the head, being the most divine part of 
us and the lord of all that is in us : to this the gods, 
when they put together the body, gave all the other 
members to be servants, considering that it partook 
of every sort of motion. 

As- I said at first, when all things were in dis- 
order God created in each thing in relation to it- 
self, and in all things in relation to each other, all 
the measures and harmonies which they could pos- 
sibly receive. For in those days nothing had any 
proportion except by accident; nor did any of the 
things which now have names deserve to be named 
at all — as, for example, fire, water, and the rest of 
the elements. All these the creator first set in 
order, and out of them he constructed the universe, 
which was a single animal comprehending in itself 
all other animals, mortal and immortal. Now of 
the divine, he himself was the creator, but the crea- 
tion of the mortal he committed to his oflfspring. 
And they, imitating him, received from him the 
immortal principle of the soul ; and around this they 
proceeded to fashion a mortal body, and made it to 
be the vehicle of the soul, and constructed within 
the body a soul of another nature which was mortal, 

'Plato, Timaeus, 44d; Jowett, Op. Cit. 'Ibid., 69c-71a. 



Plato 169 

subject to terrible and irresistible affections, — first 
of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil ; then, 
pain, which deters from good; also rashness and 
fear, two foolish counsellors, anger hard to be ap- 
peased, and hope easily led astray ; — these they 
mingled with irrational sense and with all-daring 
love according to necessary laws, and so framed 
man. Wherefore, fearing to pollute the divine any 
more than was absolutely unavoidable, they gave to 
the mortal nature a separate habitation in another 
part of the body, placing the neck between them 
to be the isthmus and boundary, which they con- 
structed between the head and breast, to keep them 
apart. And in the breast, and in what is termed 
the thorax, they encased the mortal soul ; and as the 
one part of this was superior and the other in- 
ferior they divided the cavity of the thorax into two 
parts, as the women's and men's apartments are 
divided in houses, and placed the midriff to be a 
wall of partition between them. That part of the 
inferior soul which is endowed with courage and 
passion and loves contention they settled nearer the 
head, midway between the midriff and the neck, in 
order that it might be under the rule of reason and 
might join with it in controlling and restraining the 
desires when they are no longer willing of their 
own accord to obey the word of command issuing 
from the citadel. 

The heart, the knot of the veins and the fountain 
of the blood which races through all the limbs, was 
set in the place of guard, that when the might of 
passion was roused by reason making proclam.ation 
of any wrong assailing them from without or being 



170 Readings in Philosophy 

perpetrated by the desires within, quickly the whole 
power of feeling in the body, perceiving these com- 
mands and threats, might obey and follow through 
every turn and alley, and thus allow the principle 
of the best to have the command in all of them. 
But the gods, foreknowing that the palpitation of 
the heart in the expectation of danger and the swell- 
ing and excitement of passion was caused by fire, 
formed and implanted as a supporter to the heart 
the lung, which was, in the first place, soft and 
bloodless, and also had within hollows like the pores 
of a sponge, in order that by receiving the breath 
and the drink, it might give coolness and the power 
of"" respiration and alleviate the heat. Wherefore 
they cut the air-channels leading to the lung, and 
placed the lung about the heart as a soft spring, 
that, when passion was rife within, the heart, beat- 
mg against a yielding body, might be cooled and 
suffer less, and might thus become more ready to 
join with passion in the service of reason. 

The part of the soul which desires meats and 
drinks and the other things of which it has need by 
reason of the bodily nature, they placed between the 
midriff and the boundary of the navel, contriving 
in all this region a sort of manger for the food of 
the body; and there they bound it down like a wild 
animal which was chained up wnth man, and must 
be nourished if man was to exist. They appointed 
this lower creation his place here in order that he 
might be always feeding at the manger, and have 
his dwelling as far as might be from the council- 
chamber, making as little noise and disturbance as 



Plato 171 

possible, and permitting the best part to advise 
quietly for the good of the whole, 

G. The Cardinal Virtues 

The theory of the cardinal virtues, which is a 
classic one, grows out of the psychological analysis 
of human life. Plato discusses the virtues in con- 
nection with their utility for the social order. The 
following passage will serve to illustrate the essen- 
tial points of his doctrine : 

To^ begin then: in the first place wisdom seems 
to be plainly discernible in our subject; and in con- 
nexion with it a paradoxical fact presents itself. 

What is that? 

The state which we have described is really wise, 
if I am not mistaken, inasmuch as it is prudent in 
counsel, is it not? 

It is. 

And this very quality, prudence in counsel, is evi- 
dently a kind of knowledge : for it is not ignorance, 
I imagine, but knowledge, that makes men deliberate 
prudently. 

Evidently. 

But there are many different kinds of knowledge 
in the state. 

Unquestionably there are. 

Is it then in virtue of the knowledge of its car- 
penters that the state is to be described as wise, or 
prudent in counsel? 



'Plato, Republic, Book IV, 428b-435c; Davies and 
Vaughan, Op. Cit, 



172 Readings in Philosophy 

Certainly not; for in virtue of such knowledge it 
could only be called a city of good carpentry. 

Then it is not the knowledge it employs in con- 
sidering how vessels of wood may best be made, that 
will justify us in calling our city wise. 

Certainly not. 

Well, is it the knowledge w'hich has to do with ves- 
sels of brass, or any other of this kind? 

No, none whatever. 

Neither will a knowledge of the mode of raising 
produce from the soil give a state the claim to the 
title of wise, but only to that of a successful agri- 
cultural state. 

So I think. 

Tell me, then, does our newly-organized state 
contain any kind of knowledge, residing in any sec- 
tion of the citizens, which takes measures, not in be- 
half of anything in the state, but in behalf of the 
state as a whole, devising in what manner its inter- 
nal and foreign relations may best be regulated? 

Certainly it does. 

What is this knowledge, and in whom does it re- 
side? 

It is our protective science, and it resides in that 
governing class whom we denominated just now 
perfect guardians. 

Then in virtue of this knowledge M^hat do you call 
the state? 

I call it prudent in counsel and truly wise. 

Which do you suppose will be the more numerous 
class in our state, the braziers, or these genuine 
guardians? 

The braziers will far outnumber the others. 



Plato 173 

Then will the guardians be the smallest of all the 
classes possessing this or that branch of knowledge, 
and bearing this or that name in consequence? 

Yes, much the smallest. 

Then it is the knowledge residing in its smallest 
class or section, that is to say, in the predominant 
and ruling body, which entitles a' state, organized 
agreeably to nature, to be called wise as a whole: 
and that class M^hose right and duty it is to prartake 
of the knowledge which alone of all kinds of knowl- 
edge is properly called wisdom, is naturally, as it 
appears, the least numerous body in the state. 

Most true. 

Here then we have made out, in some way or 
other, one of the four qualities, and the part of the 
state in which it is seated. 

To my mind, said he, it has been made out satis- 
factorily. 

Again, there can assuredly be no great difficulty 
in discerning the quality of courage, and the class 
in which it resides, and which entitles the state to 
be called brave. 

How so? 

In pronouncing a city to be cowardly or brave, 
who would look to any but that portion of it which 
fights in its defence and takes the field in its behalf? 

No one would look to anything else. 

No ; and for this reason, I imagine, — that the 
cowardice or courage of the state itself is not neces- 
sarily implied in that of the other classes. 

No, it is not. 

Then a city is brave as well as wise, in virtue of 
a certain portion of itself, because it has in that por- 



174 Readings in Philosophy 

tion a power which can without intermission keep 
safe the right opinion concerning things to be 
feared, which teaches that they are such as the 
legislator has declared in the prescribed education. 
Is not this what you call courage? 

I did not quite understand what you said; be so 
good as to repeat it. 

I say that courage is a kind of safe keeping. 

What kind of safe keeping? 

The safe keeping of the opinion created by law 
through education, which teaches what things and 
what kind of things are to be feared. And when I 
spoke of keeping it safe without intermission, I 
meant that it was to be thoroughly preserved alike 
in moments of pain and of pleasure, of desire and 
of fear, and never to be cast away. And if you like, 
I will illustrate it by a comparison which seems to 
me an apt one. 

I should like it. 

Well then, you know that dyers, when they wish 
to dye wool so as to give it the true sea-purple, first 
select from the numerous colours one variety, that of 
white wool, and then subject it to much careful 
preparatory dressing, that it may take the colour 
as brilliantly as possible ; after which they proceed 
to dye it. And when the wool has been dyed on this 
system, its colour is indelible, and no washing either 
with or without soap can rob it of its brilliancy. 
But when this course has not been pursued, you 
know the results, whether this or any other colour 
be dyed without previous preparation. 

I know that the dye washes out in a ridiculous 
way. 



Plato 175 

You may understand from this what we were 
labouring, to the best of our ability, to bring about, 
when we were selecting our soldiers and training 
them in music and gymnastic. Imagine that we 
were only contriving how they might be best 
wrought upon to take as it were the colour of the 
laws, in order that their opinion concerning things 
to be feared, and on all other subjects, might be in- 
delible, owing to their congenial nature and appro- 
priate training, and that their colour might not be 
washed out by such terribly efficacious detergents 
as pleasure, which works more powerfully than any 
potash or lye, and pain, and fear, and desire, which 
are more potent than any other solvent in the world. 
This power, therefore, to hold fast continually the 
right and lawful opinion concerning things to be 
feared and things not to be feared, I define to be 
courage, and call it by that name, if you do not 
object. 

No, I do not : for when the right opinion on these 
matters is held without education, as by beasts and 
slaves, you would not, I think, regard it as alto- 
gether legitimate, and you would give it some other 
name than courage. 

Most true. 

Then I accept this account of courage. 

Do so, at least as an account of the courage of 
citizens, and you will be right. On a future occa- 
sion, if you like, we will go into this question more 
fully : at present it is beside our inquiry, the object 
of which is justice: we have done enough therefore, 
I imagine, for the investigation of courage. 

You are right. 



176 Readings in Philosophy 

Two things, I proceeded, now remain, that we 
must look for in the state, temperance, and that 
which is the cause of all these investigations, justice. 

Exactly so. 

Well, not to trouble ourselves any further about 
temperance, is there any way by which we can dis- 
cover justice? 

For my part, said he, I do not know, nor do I 
wish justice to be brought to light first, if we are 
to make no further inquiry after temperance; so, 
if you wish to gratify me, examine into the latter, 
before you proceed to the former. 

Indeed, I do wish it, as I am an honest man. 

Proceed then with the examination. 

I will ; and from our present point of view, tem- 
perance has more the appearance of a concord or 
harmony, than the former qualities had. 

How so? 

Temperance is, I imagine, a kind of order and a 
mastery, as men say, over certain pleasures and 
desires. Thus we plainly hear people talking of a 
man's being master of himself, in some sense or 
other; and other similar expressions are used, in 
which we may trace a print of the thing. Is it not 
so? 

Most certainly it is. 

But is not the expression 'master of himself a 
ridiculous one? For the man who is master of him- 
self will also, I presume, be the slave of himself, and 
the slave will be the master. For the subject of all 
these phrases is the same person. 

Undoubtedly. 



Plato 177 

Well, I continued, it appears to me that the mean- 
ing of the expression is, that in the man himself, 
that is, in his soul, there resides a good principle and 
a bad, and when the naturally good principle is 
master of the bad, this state of things is described 
by the term 'master of himself;' certainly it is a 
term of praise : — but when in consequence of evil 
training, or the influence of associates, the smaller 
force of the good principle is overpowered by the 
superior numbers of the bad, the person so situated 
is described in terms of reproach and condemnation, 
as a slave of self, and a dissolute person. 

Yes, this seems a likely account of it. 

Now turn your eyes towards our new state, and 
you will find one of these conditions realized in it: 
for you will allow that it may fairly be called 'master 
of itself,' if temperance and self-mastery may be 
predicated of that in which the good principle 
governs the bad. 

I am looking as you direct, and I acknowledge the 
truth of what you say. 

It will further be admitted that those desires, and 
pleasures, and pains, which are many and various, 
will be chiefly found in children, and women, and 
servants ; and in the vulgar mass also among nominal 
freemen. , 

Precisely so. 

On the other hand, those simple and moderate de- 
sires, which go hand in hand with intellect and right 
opinion, under the guidance of reasoning, will be 
found in a small number of men, that is, in those 



178 Readings in Philosophy 

of the best natural endowments, and the best eiduca- 
tion. 

True. 

Do you not see that the parallel to this exists in 
your state; in other words, that the desires of the 
vulgar many are there controlled by the desires and 
the wisdom of the cultivated few? 

I do. 

If any state then may be described as master of 
itself, its pleasures and its desires, ours may be so 
characterized. 

Most certainly. 

May we not then also call it temperate, on all these 
accounts ? 

Surely we may. 

And again, if there is any city in which the gov- 
ernors and the governed are unanimous on the ques- 
tion who ought to govern, such unanimity will exist 
in ours. Do you not think so? 

Most assuredly I do. 

In which of the two classes of citizens will you 
say that temperance resides, when they are in this 
condition? in the rulers or in the subjects? 

In both I fancy. 

Do you see, then, that we were not bad prophets 
when we divined just now that temperance re- 
sembled a kind of harmony? 

Why, pray? 

Because it does not operate like courage and wis- 
dom, which, by residing in particular sections of 
the state, make it brave and wise respectively; but 
spreads throughout the whole in literal diapason, 
producing a unison between the weakest and the 



Plato 179 

strongest and the middle class, whether you measure 
by the standard of intelligence, or bodily strength, 
or numbers, or wealth, or anything else of the kind : 
so that we shall be fully justified in pronouncing 
temperance to be that unanimity, which we described 
as a concord between the naturally better element 
and the naturally worse, whether in a state or in a 
single person, as to which of the two has the right 
to govern. 

I fully agree with you. 

Very well, I continued : we have discerned in our 
state three out of the four principles ; at least such 
is our present impression. Now what will that re- 
maining principle be through which the state will 
further participate in virtue? — for this, we may be 
sure, is justice. 

Evidently it is. 

Now then, Glaucon, we must be like hunters sur- 
rounding a cover, and must give close attention that 
justice may nowhere escape us and disappear from 
our view: for it is manifest that she is somewhere 
here; so look for her, and strive to gain a sight of 
her, for perhaps you may discover her first, and 
give the alarm to me. 

I wish I might, replied he; but you will use me 
quite well enough, if, instead of that, you will treat 
me as one who is following your steps, and is able 
to see what is pointed out to him. 

Follow me then, after joining your prayers with 
mine. 

I will do so ; only do you lead the way. 



180 Readings in Philosophy 

Truly, said I, the ground seems to be hard to 
traverse, and covered with wood : at all events it is 
dark and difficult to explore ; but still we must on. 

Yes, that we must. 

Here I caught a glimpse, and exclaimed, Ho ! ho ! 
Glaucon, here is something that looks like a track, 
and I believe the game will not altogether escape us. 

That is good news. 

Upon my word, said I, we are in a most foolish 
predicament. 

How so? 

Why, my good sir, it appears that what we were 
looking for has been all this time rolling before our 
feet, and we never saw it, but did the most ridicu- 
lous thing. Just as people at times go about looking 
for something which they hold in their hands, so we, 
instead of fixing our eyes upon the thing itself, kept 
gazing at some point in the distance, and this was 
probably the reason why it eluded our search. 

What do you mean? 

This : that I believe we were conversing of it to- 
gether, without understanding that we were in a 
manner describing it ourselves. 

Your preface seems long to one who is anxious 
for the explanation. 

Well then, listen, and judge whether I am right 
or not. What at the commencement we laid down 
as a universal rule of action, when we were found- 
ing our state, this, if I mistake not, or some modifica- 
tion of it, is justice. I think we affirmed, if you 
recollect, and frequently repeated, that every indi- 
vidual ought to have some one occupation in the 



Plato 181 

state, which should be that to which his natural 
capacity was best adapted. 

We did say so. . ' 

And again, we have often heard people say, that 
to mind one's own business, and not be meddlesome, 
is justice; and we have often said the same thing 
ourselves. 

We have said so. 

Then it would seem, my friend, that to do one's 
own business, in some shape or other, is justice. Do 
you know whence I infer this ? 

No ; be so good as to tell me. 

I think that the remainder left in the state, after 
eliminating the qualities which we have considered, 
I mean temperance, and courage, and wisdom, must 
be that which made their entrance into it possible, 
and which preserves them there so long as they ex- 
ist in it. Now we affirmed that the remaining 
quality, when three out of the four were found, 
would be justice. 

Yes, unquestionably it would. 

If, however, it were required to decide which of 
these qualities will have most influence in perfecting 
by its presence the virtue of our state, it would be 
difficult to determine; whether it will be the har- 
mony of opinion between the governors and the gov- 
erned, or the faithful adherence on the part of the 
soldiers to the lawful belief concerning the things 
which are, and the things which are not, to be 
feared ; or the existence of wisdom and watchfulness 
in the rulers ; or whether the virtue of the state may 
not be chiefly traced to the presence of that fourth 
principle in every child and woman, in every slave. 



182 Readings in Philosophy 

freeman, and artisan, in the ruler and in the sub- 
ject, requiring each to do his own work, and not 
meddle with many things. 

It would be a difficult point to settle, unques- 
tionably. 

Thus it appears that, in promoting the virtue of a 
state, the power that makes each member of it do 
his own work, may compete with its wisdom, and 
its temperance, and its courage. 

Decidedly it may. 

But if there is a principle which rivals these qual- 
ities in promoting the virtue of a state, will you 
not determine it to be justice? 

Most assuredly. 

Consider the question in another light, and see 
whether you will come to the same conclusion. Will 
you assign to the rulers of the state the adjudica- 
tion of law-suits? 

Certainly. 

Will not their judgments be guided, above everj?-- 
thing, by the desire that no one may appropriate 
what belongs to others, nor be deprived of what is 
his own? 

Yes, that will be their main study. 

Because that is just? 

Yes. 

Thus, according to this view also, it will be 
granted that to have and do what belongs to us and 
is our own, is justice. 

True. 

Now observe whether you hold the same opinion 
that I do. If a carpenter should undertake to 
execute the work of a shoemaker, or a shoemaker 



Plato 183 

that of a carpenter, either by interchanging their 
tools and distinctions, or by the same person under- 
taking both trades, with all the changes involved in 
it, do you think it would greatly damage the state? 

Not very greatly. 

But when one whom nature has made an artisan, 
or a producer of any other kind, is. so elated by 
wealth, or a large connexion, or bodily strength, or 
any similar advantages, as to intrude himself into 
the class of the warriors ; or when a warrior in- 
trudes himself into the class of the senators and 
guardians, of which he is unworthy, and when these 
interchange their tools and their distinctions, or 
when one and the same person attempts to dis- 
charge all these duties at once, then, I imagine, you 
will agree with me, that such change and meddling 
among these will be ruinous to the state. 

Most assuredly they will. 

Then any intermeddling in the three classes, or 
change from one to another, would inflict great dam- 
age on the state, and may with perfect propriety be 
described as in the strongest sense a doing of evil. 

Quite so. 

And will you not admit that evil-doing of the 
worst kind towards one's own state is injustice? 

Unquestionably. 

This then is injustice. On the other hand, let us 
state that, conversely, adherence to their own busi- 
ness on the part of the industrious, the military, and 
the guardian classes, each of these doing its own 
v/ork in the state, is justice, and will render the 
state just. 

I fully coincide, he said, in this view. 



184 Readings in Philosophy 

Let us not state it yet quite positively ; but if we 
find, on applying this conception to the individual 
man, that there too it is admitted to constitute jus- 
tice, we will then yield our assent — for what more 
can we say? — but if not, in that case we will insti- 
tute a new inquiry. At present, however, let us 
complete the investigation which we undertook in 
the belief that, if we first endeavoured to contem- 
plate justice in some larger subject which contains 
it, we should find it easier to discern its nature in 
the individual man. Such a subject we recognized 
in a state, and accordingly we organized the best we 
could, being sure that justice must reside in a good 
city. The view, therefore, which presented itself 
to us there, let us now apply to the individual : and 
if it be admitted, we shall be satisfied; but if we 
should find something different in the case of the 
individual, we will again go back to our city, and 
put our theory to the test. And perhaps by con- 
sidering the two cases side by side, and rubbing 
them together, we may cause justice to flash out 
from the contact, like fire from dry bits of wood, 
and when it has become visible to us, may settle it 
firmly in our own minds. 

There is method in your proposal, he replied, and 
so let us do. 

I proceeded therefore to ask: When two things, 
a greater and a less, are called by a common name, 
are they, in so far as the common name applies, 
unlike or like? 

Like. 



Plato 185 

Then a just man will not differ from a just state, 
so far as the idea of justice is involved, but the two 
will be like. 

They will. 

Well, but we resolved that a state was just, when 
the three classes of characters present in it were 
severally occupied in doing their proper work : and 
that it was temperate, and brave, and wise, in con- 
sequence of certain affections and conditions of 
these same classes. 

True. 

Then, my friend, we shall also adjudge, in the 
case of the individual man, that, supposing him to 
possess in his soul the same generic parts, he is 
rightly entitled to the same names as the state, in 
virtue of affections of these parts identical with 
those of the classes in the state. 

It must inevitably be so. 



CHAPTER VIII 

ARISTOTLE 

A. Analysis of the Process of Change 

The process of change and transition which had 
been a puzzling problem throughout Greek thought 
is analyzed by Aristotle in terms of matter and 
form. His statement of the case is to be found in 
the following passages. (They are printed here in 
inverted order because out of their setting they read 
somewhat more easily thus) : 

viii. Everything^ which comes into being is 
brought about by something, that is, by a source 
from which its generation comes. And it is com- 
posed of something. Now this latter is best de- 
scribed not as the absence of the thing but as the 
matter from which it comes. We have already de- 
fined what we mean by this. And it becomes a par- 
ticular thing, as a sphere or a circle or some other 
thing. Now one does not 'make' the material — as 
the bronze — of which a thing is composed ; so one 
does not make the sphere, except in a secondary 
sense, in so far as the bronze circle is a circle and 
one makes it. For the act of making a particular 
thing is a process of making it out of some material 
in general. I mean that to make the bronze round is 
not to make the 'round' or the 'sphere', but quite a 



' Aristotle, Mefa^/(j/sw-,s, Z,. viii, vii ; translated from the 
text of Christ. 

(186) 



Aristotle 187 

different thing— that of putting this form into what 
did not have it previously. If one made the 'form', 
out of what different substance could one make it? 
There would have to be some substance underlying- 
it, as when one makes a sphere out of bronze. This 
is done by making of a particular kind of substance, 
namely bronze, a special sort of thing, namely a 
sphere. And if one made this 'sphere' also in the 
same way, it is evident that he would make it in the 
same manner, and there would be an infinite regress 
of such processes. It is evident therefore that the 
form, or whatever one ought to call the shape of 
the perceived object is not 'made'. It does not have 
an origin. Nor is there any for the essential con- 
ception of a thing. For this is what is implanted 
in another entity, either by training or by nature 
or by force. But one does cause the 'bronze sphere' 
to be. For one makes it out of the bronze and the 
form of 'sphere'. One puts the form into this mat- 
ter, and it is then a bronze sphere. But if there 
were an origin for 'the idea of sphere in general' 
out of what would it come? That which is gener- 
ated would have to be analyzed again in turn, and 
each reduced to something further, then that to 
something else; I mean in one aspect into matter, 
in another into form. A sphere is a figure whose 
surface is everywhere equally distant from a cen- 
ter. One aspect of it is the material into which the 
form is to be put ; the other the form which is to 
be put into it. The whole is what results, namely, 
the bronze sphere. 

It is evident from what we have said that the 
part which is spoken of as the form or the essence 



188 Readings in Philosophy 

does not originate; but the combination which de- 
rives its name from this does; and in everything 
which originates there is substance, and one aspect 
of the thing is the matter, the other the form. Is 
there then a 'sphere' beside the particular spheres? 
Or is there a 'house' beside the houses of brick? 
Or would there ever be any particular things if this 
were so? The genus gives the general character, 
but is not a definite particular thing. But one 
makes and produces such and such a thing out of 
'this' particular substance. And when it has been 
produced it is 'this thing of such and such a kind'. 
This concrete existing thing is 'Kallias' or 'Socrates', 
just as the other was 'this bronze sphere', but it is 
man and animal in general just as the other was a 
bronze sphere in general. It is evident then that 
the conception of forms, as some are accustomed to 
speak of forms, if they are something aside from 
the particulars and beside the acts of generation and 
the essences, is of no value. For not by virtue of 
them would there be particular instances of them. In 
some cases indeed it is evident that that which 
causes is the same sort of thing as that which is 
caused, yet not identically the same, nor one numer- 
ically, but in form, — as in the case of the products 
of nature. Man begets man, (and so in other in- 
stances), except where something arises of different 
nature, as when a horse begets a mule. Yet these 
cases also are really similar to the others ; but what 
is common to a horse and an ass has not been given 
a name as a 'proximate genus' ; perhaps it would be 
'mule'. 



Aristotle 189 

So it is evident that it is not at all necessary to 
supply forms as patterns, (for they would have to 
be found in these cases especially, since these are 
certainly substances). The begetter is adequate to 
the production of the elfect and to the embodiment 
of the form in the matter. And the compound — 
such and such a form in this flesh and these bones, 
— is Kallias or Socrates. They differ because of 
their matter, for it is different, but they are the 
same in form. For the form is indivisible. 

vii. Of things which come into existence some 
are generated by nature, some by art, some by 
chance. And all things which are generated are 
generated by something and from something and as 
of some kind. When I say 'as of some kind' I speak 
with reference to some category, such as substance, 
quantity, quality or place. Origination by nature 
occurs in the case of those things whose origin is 
through the processes of nature. The substance of 
which they are formed is matter; the source from 
which they arise is some thing in nature; the kind 
of thing which they become is 'man' or 'plant' or 
some of the other things which we call 'substances' 
in a special sense. All things which have an origin, 
whether by nature or by art, have a material. Each 
of them might exist or not exist; and the reason 
for this double possibility is the material part of 
them. In general that out of which and in accord- 
ance with which they arise is some natural thing. 
For that which comes into being is of some natural 
kind, as a plant or an animal. And that under the^ 
influence of which it arises is a natural object which 
with reference to its form may be said to be homo- 



190 Readings in Philosophy 

geneoiis. And this form is found in another indi- 
vidual ; as one man begets another man. In this 
way arise the things which come about by nature; 
but other originations are called artificial creations. 
Artificial creations result from acquired skill, or 
external power, or deliberate planning. Some of 
these also come about spontaneously and by chance, 
just as some things are generated by nature. For 
there some of the same kind of things arise in some 
instances from seed, in other instances without seed. 
Into these things we shall have to look later; but 
those things arise by art, the forms of which are 
in some one's mind. And by form I mean the es- 
sential conception of the thing and its fundamental 
essence. And indeed in a certain sense opposites have 
the same form. The opposed essence is that of the 
absence of the given thing, as health is the absence 
of disease. For by the absence of the former disease 
becomes manifest. But health is the determining 
principle, in the soul and in knowledge. The healthy 
condition of one who has been ill comes about as 
follows : since such and such a condition is health 
it is necessary, if there is to be health, that some 
other condition exist, as uniform temperature, and 
if there is to be uniform temperature then warmth. 
And in this manner one continues one's analysis 
until one arrives at a certain thing which one can do 
as the first step. The activity which comes from 
this is an artificial productivity, in this case the 
production of health. So in this sense it is true 
that health comes from health, and a house from 
a house, that form which exists without matter pro- 
duces that which does have it. The heart of the 



Aristotle 191 

physician's art and of the builder's art is the form 
of health and the form of the house. And the 
essence without matter I call the essential concep- 
tion. 

One aspect of the processes of production and 
of action is called the intellectual contemplation, the 
other the practical effecting- of them. The one 
which has to do with the principle and the form 
is intellectual contemplation. That which refers to 
the airn of the intellectual contemplation is the 
practical application. And each of the intermediate 
steps has the like phases. For instance, if one 
will be healthy it is necessary to have an even tem- 
perature. What does the maintenance of an even 
temperature involve ? This : it will result if one is 
kept warm. And what will do this? The follow- 
ing; but this exists only as a possibility. Yet it is 
in one's power. So then the action and the source 
from which the development of the healthy state 
springs, if it is from an artificial source, is the 
'form' in one's mind; but if from chance, still it 
results from something which at some time or other 
is the source of activity used by him who acts with 
conscious skill. In the case of medical treatment 
perhaps the source is in causing warmth, and one 
produces this by rubbing. So the warmth in the 
body is either a part of health or there follows it 
something which is a part of health, though only 
after some intermediate stages. And this last step 
is what causes the essential part and what is thus 
a part is to health as the stones are to a house; and 
likewise with other things. 



192 Readings in Philosophy 

As we have said, nothing can arise unless some- 
thing pre-exists. Therefore that some part neces- 
sarily exists is evident. For the material part is a 
part. And it enters into a thing and pervades its 
changes. And so it is also with the things men- 
tioned in our statement. We tell what bronze 
circles are by distinguishing two phases; saying of 
the material that it is bronze ; and of the form that 
it is this special kind of shape. And this is the 
genus under which it is placed first. The notion 
of the brazen circle includes the matter. Some 
things receive names from the matter out of which 
they come when they arise, being said, of course, to 
be not 'that substance' but 'of that substance', as 
the image of a man is said to be not 'stone' but 'of 
stone'. But a healthy man is not designated from 
that out of which he has come. The reason for this 
is that he has come from a condition opposite to his 
present one, as well as out of a substance which we 
call his material being. Thus it is both a man and 
a sick man who becomes well. But the statement 
is made rather with reference to the negative state ; 
one becomes healthy from being ill rather than from 
being a man. Consequently the well person is not 
said to be ill, but a man and a healthy man. But 
in those things to which there is no evident opposite, 
or none with a name, as of any kind of form in 
bronze, or the bricks or boards of a building, the 
process of generation is referred to these, as in the 
other case it was to the condition of illness. Where- 
fore, as in that case that from which this comes is 
not used in the name, so here the image of the man 
is not called 'wood' but is stjded 'wooden', or 'brazen' 



Aristotle 193 

not 'bronze', or 'stony' not 'stone', or a house 'of 
brick' not 'bricks'. Nor does the image come from 
wood, nor the house from bricks, if one looks at 
the matter exactly ; and one could not say this with- 
out qualification, for it is necessary that genera- 
tion come through the changing of a source, — 
through its not remaining permanent. For these 
reasons then we use such modes of expression. 

B. Grades of Soul 

Aristotle's theory of levels of soul is well repre- 
sented by the following section from his work on 
Psychology : 

Some^ organisms possess all the capacities of the 
soul mentioned, as we have said, others possess some 
only, and some possess one alone. These capacities 
we mentioned as the nutritive, the appetitive, the 
locomotive, and the intellective. The nutritive alone 
belongs to plants ; this and the sensitive to other 
organisms. But if any organism has sensation it 
also has appetite, for desire, anger, and volition are 
phases of appetite; and all animals have one of the 
senses — touch ; but those which have any sensation 
know pleasure and pain, the sweet and the bitter, 
and whatever has these has desire also ; for this is 
a longing for the pleasant. In addition they have 
the nutritive sense; for touch is the sense involved 
in nutrition, and all animals are nourished by what 
is dry or moist, warm or cold ; and touch is the sense 



^Aristotle, Psychology, Book II, ch. iii; translated from 
the text of Biehl. 



194 Readings in Philosophy 

for perceiving these, and of other things incident- 
ally. Sound, color, and smell do not contribute any- 
thing to nourishment. But taste is a variety of 
touch. Hunger and thirst are forms of desire: 
hunger — for the dry and warm, thirst — for the 
cold and moist. And taste is a kind of relish to 
these. We shall have to go into more detail re- 
garding these later, but now let it suffice to say that 
appetite belongs to animals having the sense of 
touch. As to mental imagery the situation is not 
clear, and will have to be investigated later. To 
some in addition belongs the power to move from 
place to place, and to others also understanding and 
reason, — as to men, and to other species on the 
same level or of higher rank, if such there be. 

Evidently one might formulate a single conception 
of soul in the same manner as of 'form'. For as 
in the one case there is no form beside the triangle, 
etc., so there is no 'soul in general' beyond those 
mentioned. And as there would be a common defini- 
tion in the case of the forms, one which would fit 
all, but not peculiar to any one form, so in the case 
of the types of soul mentioned. Wherefore it would 
be ridiculous both in this case and in other similar 
cases to seek a 'common conception which would be 
an appropriate description of no real thing nor ac- 
cord with anything of any particular and specific 
kind, but would ignore all such. There is an analogy 
between the properties of 'forms' and the facts 
regarding the soul. For the more elemental is in- 
volved in the derivative in the case both of forms 
and of living beings, as the triangle in the square, 
and the nutritive capacity in the sensitive. So we 



Aristotle 195 

must examine in each separate case what is the 
nature of the soul of each, as of the plant, and of 
man, or of an animal. We must consider why they 
stand in this succession. For without the nutritive 
the sensitive does not exist. But the nutritive is 
separate from the sensitive in plants. Again none 
of the other senses exists without that of touch, but 
touch does exist without the others. For many 
animals have neither sight nor hearing nor sense 
of smell. And of those which have the senses some 
have the ability to move from place to place, and 
some have not. And finally a very few have reason- 
ing power and understanding. Those mortal crea- 
tures which possess reasoning power possess also all 
the rest, but reasoning power does not belong to all 
those which have each of the others. Some have 
not even mental imagery, though others live by 
means of this alone. Concerning the theoretical 
reason a special account must be given. It is evi- 
dent therefore that this sort of account, distinct for 
each particular form is most fitting in the case of 
the soul. 

C. Epistemology. 

Aristotle's epistemological realism may be repre- 
sented by the following passage, also from the 
Psychology : 

With^ regard to the part of the soul with which 
one knows and thinks, whether it is distinct in 
reality or only conceptually, we must ask what is 
its distinguishing feature, and how thinking occurs. 



^ Ibid., Book III, chapters iv and v. 



196 Readings in Philosophy 

If thinking is like perceiving-, it is a process of pas- 
sively submitting to an intelligible object, or some- 
thing of this sort. Then it must be without expe- 
rience but capable of receiving the form, and it will 
be potentially this form although not actually it; 
and as the capacity for perception is to the thing 
perceived, — so also will reason be to that which is 
intelligible. Then since reason comprehends all 
things it must be unmixed with any, as Anaxagoras 
says, in order that it may master them; that is, in 
order that it may acquire knowledge. For some 
other kind of substance if interposed between would 
hinder and prevent its knowing. So no special 
nature belongs to it except this of 'potentiality'. 
The part of the soul which is called reason (I call 
reason that by which the soul understands and con- 
ceives) is not actually any of the existing things un- 
til it thinks them. Hence it is reasonable to believe 
that it is not mixed with the body, for it would take 
on a certain quality, like coldness or warmth ; this 
would be true, also, if it had a kind of organ as has 
the faculty of sensation. But in fact it is no one 
of these. And thej^ are right who say the soul is 
the seat of forms, except that the whole of it is not, 
but only the intelligent part, and the forms are there 
not actually but potentially. 

That inability to function does not occur alike in 
the case of the faculty of sense and of reason is 
evident from the consideration of the sense organ 
and the sense process. For sense can not function 
in consequence of too strong a stimulus, as sound 
in the midst of too strong sound stimulations, 
nor from intense colors or smells can it gain 



Aristotle 197 

the sense of vision or smell. But the reason 
when it deals with something very intelligible does 
not think the inferior details any the less clearly but 
all the better. Sense is not independent of the body, 
but reason is. But when it becomes identical with 
each thing in the way in which a knower is said to 
do when he is exercising his knowledge (this hap- 
pens when he is able to act for himself) , even then 
in a sense it is still a potentiality, though not indeed 
in the same sense as before learning or discovery ; 
but it is still capable of thinking itself. 

Size (in particular) is different from size (in 
general) and water (in particular) from water (in 
general) ; so it is in other cases; though not in all, 
for in some cases they are one and the same. So 
in the case of flesh in general and in particular, one 
distinguishes them either by difi:erent faculties or 
by the same differently applied ; for flesh is not im- 
material, but like 'the snubnosed' is a particular 
form in a particular embodiment. By the per- 
ceptual faculty then one discriminates the warm and 
the cold and those things of which flesh is a certain 
expression. One judges the notion 'flesh' either by 
some other quite different faculty or by one which 
is to the faculty of sense as a crooked line is to a 
straight one. 

Again in the case of abstractions 'the straight' is 
like 'the snubnosed' ; for it occupies space ; but the 
essential notion, if straight in general is different 
from straight in particular, is judged by a different 
faculty.' Grant the duality; then one judges by an- 
other faculty or one differently applied. And in 



^98 Readings in Philosophy 

general, then, as things are distinguishable from 
their matter, so also are the things relating to mind. 

One might raise the dijfficulty, if the reason is 
simple and nonsensuous and has nothing in common 
with anything, as Anaxagoras says, as to how it will 
think if thinking is passively submitting to some- 
thing. For it is in so far as there is some feature 
common to both that one thing acts upon another. 
Further, one might ask whether it itself is thinkable. 
For either mind will belong to other things if it is 
not itself intelligible by virtue of something else, 
and what is intelligible is always the same in kind, 
or it will have something mixed with it which makes 
it intelligible like other things. 

It was said above that passivity is due to some 
common feature, because the mind is potentially the 
objects of thought, though nothing actually before it 
thinks. And as is a tablet upon which nothing has 
been actually written so must be the nature of the 
mind. And it is itself thinkable as other things are. 
In the case of material things the thinker and the 
object thought merge ; for theoretical knowledge and 
the object of such knowledge are identical. (And we 
shall have to examine the reason why we do not 
always think.) In material things the objects of 
thought are potentially present. So that mind is 
not subject to them (for mind is potentially of such 
forms independently of matter), but the objects of 
thought are subject to mind. 

V. As in all nature there is the material factor 
which embodies every general 'form' (it being all 
forms potentially), and there is another element 
which constitutes the cause and the efficient factor, 



Aristotle 199 

determining all after the manner in which theoreti- 
cal skill affects the matter it works upon, in the 
soul also there must be different phases analogous 
to these. And mind is in one aspect of such char- 
acter as to be able to identify itself with all things, 
in another such as to create all things, an influence 
like light; for in a sense light makes potential colors 
become actual colors. And this reason is separate 
and unmixed with anything, free from the factor of 
sense, and in essence actual. Now the active is 
always of higher rank than the passive, and the 
first principle is superior to matter. Actual knowl- 
edge is identical with the thing known ; but potential 
is prior in time in particular cases, though not abso- 
lutely in time. And thought does not sometimes 
occur and sometimes not. But when by itself it is 
pure in its nature, and this alone is immortal and 
eternal. We do not remember it because it has no 
sense content; but the sensuous soul is mortal and 
without the other thinks nothing. 

D. The Highest Good. 

The key note to the ethics of Aristotle is to be 
found in the following passage from' the Nichoma- 
chean Ethics : 

Perhaps^ it appears to be uttering a commonplace 
to say that happiness is the highest good, and what 
we want is a clearer statement of what happiness is. 
Peirhaps this might be done if we could discover the 
characteristic activity of man. For, as for the 



'Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book I, chap, vii, 9-16; 
translated from the text of Burnet. 



200 Readings in PhilosopMj 

flute-player, sculptor, or any other artisan, or in 
general for those who have a special work or ac- 
tivity, goodness and excellence lie in that work, so 
it would seem to be with man, if there is any special 
activity characteristic of him. Is there a specific 
work and activity for a carpenter or shoemaker, 
but none for man as "man" ; so that he is without 
a specific function? Or, just as for the eye, hand, foot, 
or any other of the members, there appears to be 
some function, may one also beside all these set 
down a function for "man"? What would this be? 
'Life' appears to be common to man with plants ; 
and something distinctive is what we are seeking. 
We must set aside then the life of mere nourishment 
and growth. The 'sentient' life might be considered 
next; but this also appears to be common to man 
along with the horse, the ox, and every other animal. 
There is left only the activity of the rational 
faculty. And since this is spoken of in two differ- 
ent ways we must set it down as that in actual 
operation; for this is admitted to be superior (to 
merely possible activity) . Now the function of man 
is activity of the soul in accordance with reason, — 
or at least not without a possible reason. We are 
saying that the characteristic activity of a thing 
and of this thing when working well are identical 
in kind, as in the case of a musician and of a good 
musician, and that this is so absolutely in the case 
of all things, the excess in excellence being added to 
the function ; for it is the function of a musician to 
play and of a good one to play well. If this is 
so, and we set down the function of man as a kind 
of life, an activity of the soul, and more specifically 



Aristotle 201 

action in the light of reason, and if it is the mark 
of a good man to do these things rightly and well, 
each one being perfected in the line of his own excel- 
lence, then the good of man is activity of the soul 
according to its specific excellence; or if its excel- 
lences are many — in accordance with the best and 
completest. And furthermore — in a complete life. 
For one swallow, or one day, does not make spring. 
So neither does one day nor a short time make a 
man happy and good. 



CHAPTER IX 

STOIC PANTHEISM 

A. Epicurean Hedonism 

A suggestion of the spirit of Epicurean philos- 
ophy is contained in the following passage from the 
writings of Diogenes Laertius : 

It^ is right th-en for a man to consider the things 
which produce happiness, since, if happiness is 
present, we have everything, and when it is absent, 
we do everything with a view to possess it. Now, 
what I have constantly recommended to you, these 
things I would have you do and practise, considering 
them to be the elements of living well. First of all, 
believe that God is a being incorruptible and happy, 
as the common opinion of the world about God dic- 
tates ; and attach to your idea of him nothing which 
is inconsistent with incorruptibility or with happi- 
ness ; and think that he is invested with everything 
which is able to preserve to him this happiness, in 
conjunction with incorruptibility. For there are 
gods; though our knowledge of them is indistinct. 
But they are not of the character which people in 
general attribute to them ; for they do not pay a 
respect to them which accords with the ideas that 
they entertain of them. And that man is not im- 
pious who discards the gods believed in by the many. 



' Diogenes Laertius, Op. Cit., Epicurns, pp. 468-9. 

(202) 



stoic Pantheism 203 

but he who applies to the gods the opinions enter- 
tained of them by the many. For the assertions of 
the many about the gods are not anticipations 
(7rpoXr)i{/€i's) , but false opinions (iVoA^i/^ets). And in 
consequence of these, the greatest evils which befall 
wicked men, and the benefits which are conferred 
on the good, are all attributed to the gods ; for they 
connect all their ideas of them with a comparison of 
human virtues, and everything which is different 
from human qualities they regard as incompatible 
vvith the divine nature. 

Accustom yourself also to think death a matter 
with which we are not at all concerned, since all 
good and all evil is in sensation, and .since death is 
only the privation of sensation. On which account, 
the correct knowledge of the fact that death is no 
concern of ours, makes the mortality of life pleasant 
to us, inasmuch as it sets forth no illimitable time, but 
relieves us from the longing for immortality. For 
there is nothing terrible in living to a man who 
rightly comprehends that there is nothing terrible 
in ceasing to live; so that he was a silly man who 
said that he feared death, not because it would grieve 
him when it was present, but because it did grieve 
him while it was future. For it is very absurd that 
that which does not distress a man when it is pres- 
ent, should afflict him when only expected. There- 
fore, the most formidable of all evils, death, is noth- 
ing to us, since, Vv^hen we exist, death is not present 
to us; and when death is present, then we have no 
existence. It is no concern then either of the living 
or of the dead ; since to the one it has no existence, 
and the other class has no existence itself. But 



204 Readings in Philosophy 

people in general at times flee from death as the 
greatest of evils, and at times wish for it as a rest 
from the evils in life. Nor is the not living a thing 
feared, since living is not connected with it; nor 
does the wise man think not living an evil; but, just 
as he chooses food, not preferring that which is most 
abundant, but that which is nicest; so, too, he enjoys 
time, not measuring it as to whether it is of the 
greatest length, but as to v^^hether it is most agree- 
able. 

. . . It^ is for the sake of this that we do every- 
thing, wishing to avoid grief and fear; and when 
once this is the case, with respect to us, then the 
storm of the soul is, as I may say, put an end to; 
since the animal is unable to go as if to something 
deficient, and to seek something different from that 
by which the good of the soul and body will be 
perfected. 

For then we have need of pleasure when we grieve, 
because pleasure is not present; but when we do 
not grieve, then we have no need of pleasure; and 
on this account, we affirm that pleasure is the be- 
ginning and end of living happily; for we have 
recognized this as the first good, being connate with 
us ; and it is with reference to it that we begin every 
choice and avoidance ; and to this we come as if we 
judged of all good by passion as the standard; and, 
since this is the first good and connate with us, on 
this account we do not choose every pleasure but 
at times we pass over many pleasures when any 
difficulty is likely to ensue from them ; and we think 
many pains better than pleasures, when a greater 

" Ibid., pages 470, f . . 



stoic Pantheism 205 

pleasure follows them, if we endure the pain for a 
time. 

Every pleasure is therefore a good on account of 
its own nature, but it does not follow that every 
pleasure is worthy of being chosen; just as every 
pain is an evil, and yet every pain must not be 
avoided; but it is right to estimate all these things 
by the measurement and view of what is suitable 
and unsuitable; for at times we may feel the good 
as an evil, and at times, on the contrary, we may 
feel the evil as good. And we think contentment a 
great good, not in order that we may never have but 
a little, but in order that, if we have not much, we 
may make use of a little, being genuinely persuaded 
that those men enjoy luxury most completely who 
are the best able to do without it; and that every- 
thing which is natural is easily provided, and what 
is useless is not easily procured. And simple flavors 
give as much pleasure as costly fare, when every- 
thing that can give pain, and every feeling of want, 
is removed; and corn and water give the most 
extreme pleasure when any one in need eats them. 
To accustom one's self, therefore, to simple and in- 
expensive habits is a great ingredient in the perfect- 
ing of health, and makes a man free from hesitation 
with respect to the necessary uses of life. And 
when we, on certain occasions, fall in with more 
sumptuous fare, it makes us in a better disposition 
toward it, and renders us fearless with respect to 
fortune. When, therefore, we say that pleasure is 
a chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of 
the debauched man, or those which lie in sensual en- 
joyment, as some think who are ignorant, and who 



206 Readings in Philosophy 

do not entertain our opinions, or else interpret them 
perversely; but we mean the freedom of the body 
from pain, and of the soul from confusion. For it 
is not continued drinkings and revels, or the enjoy- 
ment of female society, or feasts of fish and other 
such things as a costly table supplies, that make life 
pleasant, but sober contemplation, which examines 
into the reasons for all choice and avoidance, and 
which puts to flight the vain opinions from which 
the greater part of the confusion arises which 
troubles the soul. 

B. Stoicism. • 

The fundamental aspects of Stoic philosophy may 
be briefly seen in the following passages dealing with 
their metaphysics, epistemology and ethics : 

LXVIII. They^ think that there are two general 
principles in the universe, the active and the passive. 
That the passive is matter, and existence without 
any distinctive quality. That the active is the rea- 
son which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. 
For that he, being eternal, and existing throughout 
all matter, makes everything. And Zeno, the Cit- 
tiaean, lays down this doctrine in his treatise on 
Essence, and so does Cleanthes in his essay on 
Atoms, Chrysippus in the first book of his Investi- 
gations in Natural Philosophy, towards the end, 
Archedemus in his work on Elem.ents, and Posi- 
donius in the second book of his treatise on Natural 
Philosophy. But they say that principles and ele- 
ments differ from one another. For that the one 



' Ibid., Zeno, pp. 308-311. 



stoic Pantheism 207 

had no generation or beginning, and will have no 
end; but that the elements may be destroyed by the 
operation of fire. Also, that the elements are bodies, 
but principles have no bodies and no forms, and 
elements too have forms. 

Now a body, says Apollodorus in his Natural 
Philosophy, is extended in a threefold manner; in 
length, in breadth, in depth ; and then iti is called a 
solid body ; and the surface is the limit of the body 
having length and breadth alone, but not depth. But 
Posidonius, in the third book of his Heavenly Phen- 
omena, will not allow a surface either any substan- 
tial reality, or any intelligible existence. A line is 
the limit of a surface, or length without breadth, or 
something which has nothing but length. A point 
is the boundary of a line, and is the smallest of all 
symbols. 

They also teach that God is unity, and that he is 
called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many 
other names besides. And that, as he was in the 
beginning by himself, he turned into water the whole 
substance which pervaded the air; and as the seed 
is contained in the produce, so too, he being the 
seminal principle of the world, remained behind in 
moisture, making matter fit to be employed by him- 
self in the production of those things which were to 
come after; and then, first of all, he made the four 
elements, fire, water, air, and earth. And Zeno 
speaks of these in his treatise on the Universe, and 
so does Chrysippus in the first book of his Physics, 
and so does Archedemus in some treatise on the 
Elements. 

LXIX. Now an element is that out of which at 
first all things which are are produced, and into 



208 Readings in Philosophy 

which all things are resolved at last. And the four 
elements are all equally an essence without any dis- 
tinctive quality, namely, matter ; but fire is the hot, 
water the moist, air the cold, and earth the dry — 
though this last quality is also common to the air. 
The fire is the highest, and that is called aether, in 
which first of all the sphere was generated in which 
the fixed stars are set, then that in which the planets 
revolve ; after that the air, then the water ; and the 
sediment as it were of all is the earth, which is 
placed in the centre of the rest. 

LXX. They also speak of the world in a three- 
fold sense ; at one time meaning God himself, whom 
they call a being of a certain quality, having for his 
peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being 
imperishable, and who never had any generation, 
being the maker of the arrangement and order that 
we see; and who, after certain periods of time, ab- 
sorbs all substance in himself, and then reproduces 
it from himself. And this arrangement of the stars 
they call the world, and so the third sense is one 
composed of "^ both the preceding ones. And the 
world is a thing which is peculiarly of such and such 
a quality consisting of universal substance, as Posi- 
donius affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being 
a system compounded of heaven and earth, and all 
the creatures which exist in them ; or it may be called 
a system compounded of Gods and men, and of the 
things created on their account. And the heaven 
is the most remote circumference of the world, in 
which all the Divine Nature is situated. 

Again, the world is inhabited and regulated ac- 
cording to intellect and providence, as Chrysippus 



stoic Pantheism 209 

says, in his works on Providence, and Posidonius 
in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Gods, since 
mind penetrates into every part of the world, just 
as the soul pervades us ; but it is in a greater degree 
in some parts, and in a less degree in others. For 
instance, it penetrates as a habit, as, for instance, 
into the bones and sinews ; and into some it pene- 
trates as the mind does, for instance, into the domi- 
nant principle. And thus the whole world, being a 
living thing, endowed with a soul and with reason, 
has the aether as its dominant principle, as Anti- 
pater, of Tyre, says in the eighth book of his treatise 
on the World. But Chrysippus, in the first book of 
his essay on Providence, and Posidonius in his 
treatise on Gods, say that the heaven is the domi- 
nant principle of the world ; and Cleanthes attributes 
this to the sun. Chrysippus, however, on this point 
contradicts himself; for he says in another place, 
that the most subtle portion of the aether, which is 
also called by the Stoics the first God, is what is 
infused in a sensible manner into all the beings 
which are in the air, and through every animal and 
every plant, and through the earth itself according 
to a certain habit. And that it is this which com- 
municates to them the faculty of feeling. 

They say, too, that the world is one and also in- 
finite, having a spherical form. For that such a 
shape is the most convenient for motion, as Posi- 
donius says, in the fifteenth book of his Discussions 
on Natural Philosophy, and so says Antipater also 
in his essay on the World. And on the outside there 
is diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is 
incorporeal. And it is incorporeal inasmuch as it 



210 Readings in Philosophy 

is capable of being contained by bodies, but is not so. 
And that there is no such thing as a vacuum in the 
world, but that it is all closely united and compact ; 
for that this condition is necessarily brought about 
by the concord and harmony which exist between 
the heavenly bodies and those of the earth. And 
Chrysippus mentions a vacuum in his essay on a 
Vacuum, and also in the first book of his treatise on 
the Physical Arts, and so does Apollophanes in his 
Natural Philosophy, and so does Apollodorus, and 
so does Posidonius in the second book of his dis- 
courses on Natural Philosophy. And they say that 
these things are all incorporeal, and all alike. More- 
over, that time is incorporeal, since it is an interval 
of the motion of the world. And that of time, the 
past and the future are both illimitable, but the 
present is limited. And they assert that the world 
is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by rea- 
son, and is one of the things which are perceptible 
by the senses ; and whatever has its parts perishable, 
must also be perishable in the whole. And the 
parts of the world are perishable, for they change 
into one another. Therefore, the world is perish- 
able. And again, if anything admits of a change 
for the worse it is perishable; therefore, the world 
is perishable, for it can be dried up, and it can be 
covered with water. 

Now the world was created when its substance 
was changed from fire to moisture, by the action of 
the air; and then its denser parts coagulated, and so 
the earth was made, and the thinner portions were 
evaporated and became air; and this being rarefied 
more and more, produced fire. And then, by the 



stoic Pantheism 211 

combination of all these elements, were produced 
plants and animals, and other kinds of things. Now 
Zeno speaks of the creation, and of the destruction 
of the world, in his treatise on the Universe, and so 
does Cleanthes, and so does Antipater, in the tenth 
book of his treatise on the world. But Panaetius 
"asserts that the world is imperishable. 

Again, that the world is an animal, and that it 
is endued with reason, and life, and intellect, is 
affirmed by Chrysippus, in the first volume of his 
treatise on Providence, and by Apollodorus in his 
Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius; and that it 
is "an animal in this sense, as being an essence en- 
dued with life, and with sensation. For that which 
is an animal, is better than that which is not an 
animal. But nothing is better than the world ; there- 
fore the world is an animal. And it is endued with 
life, as is plain from the fact of our own soul being 
as it were a fragment broken off from it. But 
Boethus denies that the world is an animal. 

Again, that the world is one, is affirmed by Zeno, 
in his treatise on the Universe, and by Chrysippus, 
and by Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, and 
by Posidonius, in the first book of his Discourses 
on Natural Philosophy. And by the term, the uni- 
verse, according to Apollodorus, is understood both 
the world itself, and also the whole of the world 
itself, and of the exterior vacuum taken together. 
The world, then, is finite, and the vacuum infinite. 

LII. They* say that the first inclination which 
an animal has is to protect itself, as nature brings 



■" Ibid., pages 290-292. 



212 Readings in Philosophy 

herself to take an interest in it from the beginning, 
as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his Treatise 
on Ends; where he says that the first and dearest 
object to every animal is its own existence, and its 
consciousness of that existence. For that it is not 
natural for any animal to be alienated from itself, 
or even to be brought into such a state as to be in- 
diff'erent to itself, being neither alienated from nor 
interested in itself. It remains, therefore, that we 
must assert that nature has bound the animal to it- 
self by the greatest unanimity and affection ; for by 
that means it repels all that is injurious, and at- 
tracts all that is akin to it and desirable. But as 
for what some people say, that the first inclination 
of animals is to pleasure, they say what is false. 
For the Stoics say that pleasure, if there be any such 
thing at all, is an accessory only, which nature, hav- 
ing sought it out by itself, as well as those things 
which are adapted to its constitution, receives in- 
cidentally in the same manner as animals are 
pleased, and plants made to flourish. 

Moreover, say they, nature makes no difference 
between animals and plants, when she regulates 
them so as to leave them without voluntary motion 
or sense; and some things too take place in our- 
selves in the same manner as in plants. But, as 
inclination in animals tends chiefly to the point of 
making them pursue what is appropriate to them, 
we may say that their inclinations are regulated by 
nature. And as reason is given to rational animals 
according to a more perfect principle, it follows, 
that to live correctly according to reason, is properly 
predicated of those who live according to nature. 



stoic Pantheism 213 

For nature is as it were the artist who produces the 
inclination. 

LIIL On which account Zeno was the first writer 
who, in his Treatise on the Nature of Man, said that 
the chief good was confessedly to live according to 
nature; which is to live according to virtue, for 
nature leads us to this point. And in like manner 
Cleanthes speaks in his Treatise on Pleasure, and 
so do Posidonius and Hecaton in their essays on 
Ends and the Chief Good, And again, to live ac- 
cording to virtue is the same thing as living accord- 
ing to one's experience of those things which happen 
by nature; as Chrysippus explains it in the first 
book of his Treatise on the Chief Good. For our 
individual natures are all parts of universal nature; 
on which account the chief good is to live in a man- 
ner corresponding to nature, and that means cor- 
responding to one's own nature and to universal 
nature; doing none of those things which the com- 
mon law of mankind is in the habit of forbidding, 
and that common law is identical with that right 
reason which pervades everything, being the same 
with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief man- 
ager of all existing things. 

Again, this very thing is the virtue of the happy 
man and the perfect happiness of life when every- 
thing is done according to a harmony with the 
genius of each individual with reference to the will 
of the universal governor and manager of all things. 
Diogenes, accordingly^, says expressly that the chief 
good is to act according to sound reason in our selec- 
tion of things according to our nature. And 
Archidemus defines it to be living in the discharge 



214 Readings in Philosophy 

of all becoming duties. Chrysippus again under- 
stands, that the nature, in a manner corresponding 
to which we ought to live, is both the common na- 
ture, and also human nature in particular; but 
Cleanthes will not admit of any other nature than 
the common one alone, as that to which people ought 
to live in a manner corresponding; and repudiates 
all mention of a particular nature. And he asserts 
that virtue is a disposition of the mind always con- 
sistent and harmonious; that one ought to seek it 
out for its own sake, without being influenced by 
fear or hope of any external influence. Moreover, 
that it is in it that happiness consists, as producing 
in the soul harmony of a life always consistent with 
itself, and that if a rational animal goes the wrong 
way, it is because it allows itself to be misled by the 
deceitful appearances of exterior things, or per- 
haps by the instigation of those who surround it; 
for nature herself never gives us any but good in- 
clination. 

LX. But^ it seems that all goods are equal, and 
that every good is to be desired in the highest de- 
gree, and that it admits of no relaxation, and of no 
extension. Moreover, they divide all existing things 
into good, bad, and indifferent. The good are the 
virtues, prudence, justice, manly courage, temper- 
ance, and the rest of the like qualities. The bad 
are the contraries, folly, injustice, and the like. 
Those are indifferent which are neither beneficial 
nor injurious, such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, 
strength, riches, a good reputation, nobility of birth ; 



" Ibid., pages 296, f . 



stoic Pantheism , 215 

and their contraries, death, disease, labour, disgrace, 
weakness, poverty, a bad reputation, baseness of 
birth, and the like; as Hecaton lays it down in the 
seventh book of his treatise on the Chief Good ; and 
he is followed by Apollodorus, in his Ethics, and by 
Chrysippus. For they affirm that those things are 
not good but indifferent, though perhaps a little 
more near to one species than to the other. 

For, as it is the property of the hot to warm and 
not to chill one, so it is the property of the good to 
benefit and not to injure one. Now, wealth and good 
health cannot be said to benefit any more than to 
injure any one: therefore, neither wealth nor good 
health are goods. Again, they say that that thing 
is not good which it is possible to use both well and 
ill. But it is possible to make either a good or a 
bad use of wealth, or of health; therefore, wealth 
and good health are not goods. Posidonius, how- 
ever, affirms that these things do come under the 
head of goods. But Hecaton, in the nineteenth 
book of his treatise on Goods, and Chrysippus, in his 
treatises on Pleasure, both deny that pleasure is a 
good. For they say that there are disgraceful 
pleasures, and that nothing disgraceful is good. 
And that to benefit a person is to move him or to 
keep him according to virtue, but to injure him is 
to move him or to keep him according to vice. 

They also assert, that things indifferent are so 
spoken of in a twofold manner ; firstly, those things 
are called so, which have no influence in producing 
either happiness or unhappiness ; such for instance, 
as riches, glory, health, strength, and the like; for 
it is possible for a man to be happy without any of 



216 Readings in Philosophy 

these things; and also, it is upon the character of 
the use that is made of them, that happiness or un- 
happiness depends. In another sense, those things 
are called indifferent, which do not excite any in- 
clination or aversion, as for instance, the fact of a 
man's having an odd or an even number of hairs on 
his head, or his putting out or drawing back his 
finger; for it is. not in this sense that the things 
previously mentioned are called indifferent, for they 
do excite inclination or aversion. On which ac- 
count some of them are chosen, though there is equal 
reason for preferring or shunning all the others. 

LXIV. They^ say also that the wise man is free 
from perturbations because he has no strong pro- 
pensities. But that this freedom from propensities 
also exists in the bad man, being, however, then 
quite another thing, ijiasmuch as it proceeds in him 
only from hardness and unimpressibility of his na- 
ture. They also pronounce the wise man free from 
vanity, since he regards with equal eye what is 
glorious and what is inglorious. At the same time, 
they admit that there is another character devoid of 
vanity, who, however, is only reckoned one of the 
rash men, being in fact the bad man. They also 
say that all the virtuous men are austere, because 
they do never speak with reference to pleasure, nor 
do they listen to what is said by others with refer- 
ence to pleasure. At the same time, they call an- 
other man austere too, using the term in nearly the 
same sense as they do when they speak of austere 



^Ihid., pages 301, ff. 



stoic Pantheism • 217 

wine, which is used in- compounding medicines, but 
not for drinking. 

They also pronounce the wise to be honest-hearted 
men, anxiously attending to those matters which 
may make them better, by means of some principle 
which conceals what is bad, and brings to light what 
is good. Nor is there any hypocrisy about them; 
for they cut off all pretence in their voice and ap- 
pearance. They also keep aloof from business; for 
they guard carefully against doing anything con- 
trary to their duty. They drink wine, but they do 
not get drunk ; and they never yield to frenzy. Oc- 
casionally, extraordinary imaginations may obtain a 
momentary power over them, owing to some melan- 
choly or trifling, arising not according to the prin- 
ciple of what is desirable, but contrary to nature. 
Nor, again, will the wise man feel grief; because 
grief is an irrational contraction of the soul, as 
Apollodorus defines it in his Ethics. 

They are also, as they say, godlike; for they have 
something in them which is as it were a God. But 
the bad man is an atheist. Now there are two kinds 
of atheists ; one who speaks in a spirit of hostility 
to, and the other, who utterly disregards, the divine 
nature; but they admit that all bad men are not 
atheists in this last sense. The good, on the con- 
trary, are pious ; for they have a thorough acquain- 
tance with the laws respecting the Gods. And 
piety is a knowledge of the proper reverence and 
worship due to the Gods. Moreover they sacrifice 
to the Gods, and keep themselves pure; for they 
avoid all off'enses having reference to the Gods, and 
the Gods admire them; for they are holy and just in 



218 . Readings in Philosophy 

all that concerns the Deity ; and the wise men are the 
only priests ; for they consider the matters relating 
to sacrifices, and the erection of temples, and puri- 
fications, and all other things which peculiarly con- 
cern the Gods. They also pronounce that men are 
bound to honor their parents, and their brethren, 
in the second place after the Gods, They also say 
that parental affection for one's children is natural 
to them, and is a feeling which does not exist in bad 
men. And they lay down the position that all 
offenses are equal, as Chrysippus argues in the 
fourth book of his Ethical Questions, and so say 
Persaeus and Zeno. For if one thing that is true 
is not more true than another thing that is true, 
neither is one thing that is false more false than 
another thing that is false ; so too, one deceit is not 
greater than another, nor one sin than another. 
For the man who is a hundred furlongs from 
Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both 
equally not in Canopus ; and so too, he who commits 
a greater sin, and he who commits a less, are both 
equally not in the right path. 



CHAPTER X 

MYSTICISM — NEO-PLATONISM 

The system of Plotinus is contained in the En- 
neads which have come down to us in somewhat dis- 
organized form as gathered together by his pupil 
Porphyry, some of the leading passages of which 
are translated in the following: 

A. On the One: 

All^ things that exist do so by virtue of 'unity', — 
in so far as they exist in any ultimate sense and in 
so far as they may be said to be real. For what 
would anything be if it were not 'one'? Without 
the unity of which we speak things do not exist. 
There can be no army which is not a unit, nor a 
chorus, nor herd, unless each is 'one'. Neither is 
there a household or ship without unity; for the 
house is a unit and the ship is a unit, and if one 
took away the unity the household would no longer 
be a household nor the ship a ship. Continuous 
magnitudes would not exist if there were no unity 
to them. When divided, in so far as they lose unity 
they lose existence. So also with the bodies of 
plants and animals, each of which is a unit, if unity 
is lost — being broken up into multiplicity — they 
lose the being which they had, and no longer con- 



^ Plotinus, Enyieads, IX, 1 ; translated from the text of 
Kirchhoff. 

(219) 



220 Readings in Philosophy 

tinue as they were. And they become other things 
even then only in so far as these have unity. Simi- 
larly there is health when the body is harmonized 
into unity, and beauty when the essence of unity 
controls the parts, and virtue in the soul when it is 
unified and brought into a single organic whole. 

There- must be something prior to all, simple, 
and difi'erent from the things which are posterior to 
it, self-existent, unmingled with the things which 
come from it, and yet able in another way to be 
present with the others, being really one, not some-, 
thing else first then secondarily one, of which it is 
false even that it is one; but of this One no descrip- 
tion nor scientific knowledge is possible. Indeed it 
must be said to be beyond 'being' ; for if it were not 
simple, without any composition and synthesis, and 
really one, it would not be a first principle. And it 
is wholly self-sufficient since it is simple and prior 
to all things. What is not first needs something 
prior to itself, and that which is not simple demands 
those simple elements which are within it, that it 
may be composed of them. Such a One must be 
unique, for if there were another such both together 
would constitute a larger unit. For we hold that 
they are not two bodies nor is the Primary One a 
body. For no body is simple, and a body is subject 
to generation; it is not an ultimate principle. The 
ultimate principle is unoriginated, and being incor- 
poreal and really one it is able to stand first. 

Since^ substances which have an origin are of 
some form (for no one could say anything else of 



VII, 1. UhU., XXIX, 6. 



Mysticism — Neo-Platonism 221 

what is generated from the One), and since it is not 
any particular form but all, without exception, the 
first principle must be formless. And being form- 
less it is not substance ; for substance must be par- 
ticular and determinate. But this can not be re- 
garded as particular, for it would not be a principle, 
but merely that particular thing which you may 
have called it. If then all things are included 
among what are generated, which of them will you 
say is the first principle? Only what is none of 
them could be said to stand above the rest. But 
these constitute existing things and Being in gen- 
eral. The First Principle then is beyond Being. 
To say that it is beyond Being does not assert any 
definite attribute. It does not define it. Nor does 
it give it a name. It applies to it only the appella- 
tion "not-this". In doing so it nowhere sets limits 
to it. It would be absurd to seek to delimit such a 
boundless nature. He who wishes to do this pre- 
vents himself from getting upon its track in any 
wise, even little by little. But just as he who wishes 
to see the Intelligible must abandon all imagery of 
the perceptible in order to contemplate what is be- 
yond the perceptible, so he who wishes to contem- 
plate what is beyond the Intelligible will attain the 
contemplation of it by letting go everything intel- 
ligible, through this means learning that it is, aban- 
doning the search for tvhat it is. To tell what it is 
would involve a reference to what it is not, for there 
is no quality in what has no particular character. 
But we are in painful doubt as to what we should 
say of it; so we speak of the ineffable and give it a 
name, meaning to endow it with some significance to 



222 Readings in Philosophy 

ourselves so far as we can. Perhaps this name 
'The One' implies merely opposition to plurality. 
. . . But if The One were given positive content, 
a name and signification, it would be less appro- 
priately designated than when one does not give any 
name. It may be said that description of it is 
carried thus far in order that he who has begun 
his search with that which indicates the simplest 
of all things may end by negating even this, on the 
ground that it was taken simply as the most ade- 
quate and the nearest description possible for him 
who used it, but not even this is adequate to the 
revelation of that nature, because it is inaudible, 
not to be understood through hearing, and if by 
any sense at all by vision alone. But if the eye that 
sees seeks to behold a form it will not descry even 
this. 

B. Emanation. 

If* there exists anything beside the First Prin- 
ciple it must be derived from it, either immediately 
or through connection with it by way of what is be- 
tween them ; and there must be a second and a third 
order of beings, the one dependent upon the first, the 
other upon the second. ... If then there be 
any second thing beside the First, it can not be 
simple; for the one would then be many. Whence 
then is this latter? From the First; it does not 
exist by chance ; for then the First would not be the 
Principle of all things. How then does it come 
from the First? If the First is perfect, the most 

' Ibid., VII, 1. 



Mysticism — Neo-Platonism 223 

perfect of all, and the primary power, it must be the 
most powerful of all things, and other powers must 
resemble it in so far as they have power at all. Now 
in the case of other things we see that whatever 
reaches its perfection becomes creative, and does not 
permit itself to remain alone, but creates another. 
Not only is this true in the case of what has power 
of choice, but also those things which produce with- 
out choice, even lifeless things imparting their being 
so far as they are able; for example, fire warms, 
snow cools, and drugs work their effects upon other 
things, and so in all other such cases, working after 
the manner of the First Principle to their utmost 
capacity in duration of influence and in excellence 
of quality. How then could the Most Perfect and 
Supreme Good remain by itself as if begrudging its 
influence or lacking in power, — when it is the 
generator of all? How could it then be the First 
Principle? And something must be begotten of it 
if there is also to be any from those things which 
are sustained by it. For that they should come 
from it is unavoidable. The begetter must be of 
highest rank; and that which is begotten, and is 
second in rank to it, must be superior to the rest. 

The'^ One is all things and yet not one of them. 
The source of all things is not identical with all, 
and yet in a sense it is; for from it things sprang 
forth as it were. Rather, it is not yet all, but will 
be. How then could all things spring from the One, 
when it is simple, presenting no variety nor duplicity 
whatever in it? It is because there was nothing in 

^ Ibid., XI, \, 2. 



224 Readmgs in Philosophij 

it that all things sprang from it. And in order that 
the real might exist it was itself not real, but 
the generator of the Real, And this was as it were 
the first act of generation. Being perfect in that it 
sought nothing; possessed nothing, and wanted noth- 
ing, it overflowed, and its superabundance caused 
the creation of another essence. This product 
turned back toward it, received fulness of being, 
began to reflect upon itself, and thus becam.e mind. 
Its position in relation to the One made it real, its 
contemplation of itself made it mind. Since it has 
taken its stand so that it may contemplate itself 
it has become both mind and reality at once. 

Thus then being like the First Principle, it creates 
likenesses through its superabundance of power. 
And this is a likeness of it just as that which is prior 
to it produced a likeness of itself. And this develop- 
ment of essence became soul, arising out of the 
other without its being destroyed thereby. Mind 
also originated without affecting that which pre- 
ceded it. The soul however does not create without 
being affected at all, but by changing it begot a 
likeness. Looking to the source from which it came 
it receives fulness of being; but going forth into 
another movement in the opposite direction it gen- 
erates an image of itself, — sensation and such life 
as is found in plants. But nothing is detached or 
cut off from that which preceded it. Wherefore the 
soul of man seems to extend down even to the level 
of plants. In a certain sense it does because a part 
of it is in plants. It is indeed not all in plants, but 
it is generated in plants so far because it descended 
thus low, forming another level of substance in its 



Mysticism — Neo-Platonism 225 

process, and in eagerness for what is below. For 
that which is prior to this and dependent upon mind 
allows mind to remain by itself. 

So procession occurs from the first to the last, 
each stage being left in its own place, that which is 
generated receiving the next lower rank. 

How'' must we conceive this Immovable? We 
must imagine a radiance proceeding from it without 
affecting it, like the bright light surrounding the 
sun, being continuously generated from it without 
its being affected. And all real things so long as 
they last give off from their substance a. peculiar 
emanation dependent upon them, surrounding them 
and proceeding from their power, being a likeness 
as it were of the original from which it sprang. 
Fire gives off heat. Snow does not retain its cold- 
ness within itself. But especially do fragrant things 
illustrate this; for so long as they last there goes 
forth something from them into the surrounding 
air, an emanation which all things near enjoy. 

C. Intellect. 

AlF things which have attained their perfection 
procreate. That which is eternally perfect eter- 
nally begets something, and that a thing eternal. 
But it begets something inferior to itself. What 
then shall we say about the Most Perfect? Nothing 
arises from it except what is next greatest after it. 
But the greatest and second after it is mind. For 



"Ibid., X, 6. ' Ibid., X, 6, 7. 



226 Readings in Philosophy 

mind contemplates it and feels need of nothing else. 
But the Most Perfect has no need of mind. That 
which is begotten of what is superior to mind is 
mind, and mind is superior to all other things; 
other things are posterior to it. . . . But mind 
contemplates its source not because it is separated 
from it, but because it is next after it and there is 
nothing between; and this is true also in the case 
of soul and mind. Everything has a longing for 
and loves that which begot it, and especially when 
there are only the one that begot and the one begot- 
ten. And when the Supremely Good is the one who 
begot, the one begotten is necessarily joined to Him 
so intimately that it is separated only in so far as 
it is a second being. 

We say that mind is an image of the First Prin- 
ciple; but we must speak more clearly. First, that 
which is begotten must be in a sense that which 
begot it, and retain many features of it and be a 
likeness of him as the light is of the sun. But that 
other is not mind. How then does it generate mind ? 
— In that it turned back toward it and beheld it, 
and this contemplation is mind. 

Let^ us understand then that intelligence existed 
without connection with any particular, nor acting 
upon anything, so that it was not a specialized in- 
telligence, but was like knowledge before it takes 
a particular form, and generic knowledge prior to 
any particulars under it. Knowledge in general, 
though no one of the particulars is the potentiality 
of all, and each of them is that particular in ac- 



Ihid., XXXIX, 50. 



Mysticism — Neo-Platonis7n 227 

tuality, and potentially it is all things; and with 
intelligence in general it is so. Those forms are 
generic which lie potentially within the whole, and 
which while including what is of special form, are 
potentially the whole. For the whole is predicated 
of the part, but not the part of the whole. The 
latter must remain unrestricted, by itself. So in a 
sense mind as a whole must be said to exist prior to 
the actual particulars, in a sense the particulars 
prior, they being pervaded by the universal, and 
mind in general being the source of supply for the 
particulars and on the other hand their potentiality, 
and containing them in the universal. They on the 
other hand which are partial contain the universal 
as particular sciences contain science in general. 
The Great Mind exists of itself; and each particular 
intelligence by itself as partial; the partial are in- 
volved in the whole and the whole in the parts. 
Each exists by itself and also in the other, and the 
other is by itself and in them ; and all are potentially 
in it, which exists by itself and is actually all at once 
but potentially each one apart, and the particulars 
are actually just what they are but potentially the 
whole. In so far as they are what they are said to 
be they are actually that ; in so far as they are that 
genus they are potentially it. But in so far as mind 
is genus it is the potentiality of all the forms which 
are under it though actually no one of them, but all 
are latent in it. In so far as it actually is what it 
is prior to any special form, it is not particular. But 
if they are to be in actuality such as they are in 
general form some power from it must become the 
cause. 



228 Readings in Philosophy 

When'' life is rational and not an imperfect ac- 
tuality it omits none of the things which we find to 
be works of reason, but it has all things in its power, 
holding them as real and as intelligence would. 
Mind holds them as in reflective thought, but not in 
discursive reason; and nothing is omitted which is 
in any degree rational. But there is as it were one 
Reason, supreme, perfect, embracing all, entering 
into all from its own original being, or rather which 
has always entered into them in such a way that the 
process is never evident. For absolutely every- 
where whatever one would find in nature as a con- 
sequence of deliberation this one would find existing 
in reason without deliberation, so that one would 
think a deliberating mind had created what is, as in 
the case of the principles which pfoduce living 
things. For as the most careful reasoning would 
calculate as accurately as possible that things should 
be so are they in the principles which exist prior to 
deliberation. 

D. Soul. 

Soul^"' is an image of intelligence. As the word 
uttered is the likeness of the word in the mind so 
also is soul the expression of intelligence, and its 
whole actualization, the life which it sends forth 
as the substance of another type of existence, just 
as of fire one part is the heat which remains with 
it the other that which it gives off. We must con- 
ceive it in that case not as leaving it, but as partly 
remaining within it, partly constituting another 



Ibid., XXXIX, 51. ^0 X, 3. 



X 



Mysticism — N eo-Platonism 229 

existence. Being therefore originated from intel- 
ligence soul is intelligent, and its intelligence is 
shown in reasonings, and its perfection is derived 
from intelligence as from a father who nourishes 
the offspring he begot, — an imperfect thing in com- 
parison with himself. Its basis, then, is in intel- 
ligence and it is the reason expressed in actuality 
when intellect is contemplated by it. When it looks 
in upon reason it has within itself as its own that 
which it is thinking of and realizing. And we must 
say that those alone are the true activities of the 
soul, which are intellectual and from within. In- 
ferior things are from elsewhere and are accidents 
of such a soul. Mind then makes the soul much 
more divine both through being its progenitor and 
by its presence within it. For nothing separates 
them except the difference of their natures, so that 
they are in contact and are as the one content the 
other form. The matter of intelligence is beauti- 
ful being of intellectual form and simple. 

In^^ the intelligible world there is true Being. 
Mind is the best part of it. But souls are also there ; 
for they are there and come from there. And that 
world contains souls without bodies, but this one 
contains those which have taken on bodies and have 
been divided among them. There all mind is to- 
gether, and no separation or partition has been 
made; but all souls are together in the one world, 
without spatial separation. Mind is always un- 
divided and not parted. And soul is there undivided 
and unseparated. But it has a nature subject to 



Ihid., XXI. 
16 



230 Readings in Philosophy 

division. And its division is the process of descend- 
ing- and entering into bodies. It is reasonable to 
say that it is divisible in connection with bodies, 
because thus it descends and is divided. How then 
is it also indivisible? It has not wholly descended, 
but there is a part of it which has not come down, 
which has not the nature to be divided. That which 
is indivisible and that which is divisible in connec- 
tion with bodies are the same through its being both 
above and below and being suspended from there 
but having extended down to this realm as a radius 
from a center. Having descended hither it has, the 
power of contemplation through the very same part 
through which it retains the nature of the whole. 
For not even here is it merely divisible, but in a 
sense also indivisible. For that part of it which is 
divided is indivisibly divided. For entering into 
the whole body without being divided it is divided 
in that it as a whole is in the whole body. 

When^- individual souls are moved by an intel- 
lectual desire and turn toward the source from 
which they originated, but have also a power extend- 
ing to things below, (just as light depends upon the 
sun above which does not grudge to dispense it to 
what is below it) , they remain securely with the 
Whole in the intelligible realm, and in heaven join 
with the Whole in its administration, as kings as- 
sociate with a universal ruler in his administration 
without descending from their royal places ; for they 
are then in the same state together. But descend- 
ing from the Whole to a partial and separate ex- 

" Ihid., VI, 4. 



Mysticism — Neo-Platonism 231 

istence and as it were being weary of associating 
with another each withdraws into an existence of 
its own. But when it has done this for some time, 
fleeing from the Whole and withdrawing by differ- 
entiation, and when it does not look to the Intel- 
ligible, becoming a particular it grows solitary and 
weak and troubled and looks to the individual. And 
through separation from the host on high, having at- 
tached itself to a particular body and fleeing all 
the rest, concentrating upon that one, which is 
buffeted by all things it both withdraws from the 
Whole and attends to the individual with circum- 
stantial care, being already attached to it, and at- 
tending extraneous things, associating with and en- 
tering deeply into it. Then there comes to it what 
may be called a molting, and it becomes entangled 
in the bonds of the body losing the innocence which 
was its own in the administration of the upper 
realm, in the region of the universal soul. 

E. Matter. 

Emanations^^ from the other levels of Reality 
occur without their being disturbed, but the soul, we 
have said, is modified while generating the sense 
realm derived from it, and nature as far down as 
plants. It has this nature even in us, but holds it 
in subordination since it is only partial ; but when 
it enters into plants it is the sole controlling factor. 
This then begets nothing totally distinct from it; 
for there is no longer any life beyond it; what is 
then begotten is lifeless. Everything which was 

^Ubid., XV, 1. 



232 Readings in Philosophy 

generated before this was generated without forai, 
but received form by turning toward that which 
begot it as toward its guardian; in this case that 
which is begotten can not be a form of soul; for 
it is not alive, but is absolutely indeterminate. 
Though in the prior cases also there is indefiniteness, 
still it is within their form, not entire indeter- 
minateness, but as it were with reference to their 
perfection ; but the present indeterminateness is ab- 
solute. Attaining its perfection it becomes body 
by taking on the form which is fitting to its poten- 
tiality, as the receptacle of that which begot and 
nourished it, it being the very last feature in the 
body derived from on high but abiding on the low- 
est level below. 

But " we must return to the consideration of mat- 
ter as underlying substrate, and to the things which 
are said to be made of it, in order that the unreality 
and neutral character of matter may be recognized. 
Now it is not a concrete body, since 'body' is deriva- 
tive and compound, and matter along with another 
factor composes body. From this it has been given 
the same description (as has Reality) with refer- 
ence to its incorporeality; because both Being and 
matter are different from bodies. Being not soul 
neither is it mind nor life nor form nor reason nor 
limit ; for it is unlimited ; nor potentiality, for what 
can it do? But falling outside all these it could not 
rightly receive the predicate of 'being'; 'non-being' 
one might reasonably call it, and that not in the 
sense in which movement or position is non-being; 

" XXV, 7. 



Mysticism — Neo-Platonism 23S 

but really non-being, a mere image and appearance 
of mass and a longing for substance; never standing 
still, invisible in itself, and ever escaping him who 
would see it, existing when one does not look at it, 
but seen by no one who intently gazes at it; always 
displaying contradictions in itself, being both large 
and small, less and more, lacking and superabound- 
ing, an image not abiding nor capable on the other 
hand of fleeing. It is not capable of doing even this 
because it has received no strength from intelligence, 
but is completely lacking in being. Wherefore it 
proves false to all its promise, for if it appears large 
it is really small, and if more it is less, and its ex- 
istence is in appearance, being non-existence, like a 
fleeting toy. Whence also the things which seem 
to be in it are toys, mere images within an image, 
as in a mirror things situated in one place appear 
in another and it seems full though containing noth- 
ing, and all are mere appearances. 

The likenesses and images of real things which 
enter into and come forth from it do so in a formless 
image, and because of its forailessness when they 
are seen in it they appear to be producing something 
in it, but they really produce nothing, for they are 
powerless and weak and possessed of no firmness. 
And since it also has none they go through it with- 
out affecting it as through water or as if one were 
introducing forms into the so-called Vacuum'. On 
the other hand if the things seen in it were of the 
same kind as those from which they came, perhaps 
one might suppose that that which takes form in 
them was effected by them, — attributing to them 
some of the power of the source which emitted them. 



234 Readings in Philosophy 

But now since the things which cast the reflections 
are of one kind and those which are seen in it are 
of a different sort, from these facts one can discern 
the falsity of its receptiveness, that which is seen 
therein being false and possessing no similarity 
at all to the source which caused them. Being them- 
selves weak and false, and falling into a false sub- 
stance, as in a dream or in water or a mirror, they 
leave it necessarily unaffected. And yet in the 
cases mentioned the things seen therein possess a 
similarity to the things which see them. 

It^^ is possible thus also to understand the neces- 
sity of evil. For since the good is not alone ex- 
istent it is necessary that through departure from 
it, or, if one should wish thus to express it, through 
continual descent or withdrawal from it, the final 
stage (one beyond which it is not possible for any- 
thing further to be generated) , should be evil. That 
which follows the First exists of necessity; so also 
the last, and this is matter, and it contains nothing 
more of the First. This is the necessity of evil. 

F. Sin and Salvation. 

Consider^^ a soul that is deformed, intemperate, 
unjust, full of the utmost desires, of the greatest 
agitation, in fear because of its cowardice, in envy 
because of meanness, thinking all the thoughts of 
mortal and low character, distorted in every way, 
fond of impure pleasures, living a life of all kinds 
of bodily experiences, regarding its deformity as 
pleasant. Shall we not say that this very deformity 



^' Ibid., XLV, 7. " I, 5. 



Mysticism — N eo-Platonism 235 

has come upon it as extraneous evil which has out- 
raged it, and made it unclean, mingled with much 
evil, having no longer a pure life or feelings, but 
through the admixture of evil living an obscure life, 
deeply tinged with mortality, no longer contemplat- 
ing what the soul ought to contemplate, no longer 
allowing itself to remain apart, but being attracted 
always toward the external, the low and the dark. 
Being impure, doubtless, and borne every way by 
the attractions of the things which appeal to the 
senses, heavily weighted with the body, close linked 
with the material, and having even received it into 
itself, it has assumed a foreign form through mix- 
ture with what is low, like one who had entered mud 
or mire and who no longer displayed the beauty he 
once had, but should be seen covered with this mud 
and mire which he had acquired ; and upon him has 
come ill-favor through the acquisition of a foreign 
substance, and it will be necessary for him, if he 
wishes to be beautiful again, to become what he was 
through washing and cleansing. 

We should be right in saying that the soul be- 
comes ill-favored through mingling and mixing with 
the body and through inclination toward it, and to- 
ward matter. And this is ugliness in a soul: not 
to be pure and unalloyed, as it is bad for gold to 
be mixed with soil, which if removed leaves the gold 
beautiful, purged of other substances, being left in 
its purity. In the same manner the soul purified 
of desires which it has because of the body with 
which it has come into too close association, being 
freed from other passions and purified of those 
which it has because of its embodiment, remaining 



236 Readings in Philosophy 

in its purity, puts away all the baseness derived 
from its other nature. 

There^' should therefore be a reascent to the good 
which eveiy soul desires. If any one has seen it 
he knows what I mean, — how beautiful it is. It 
must be desired as good, and one's desire must be 
for this. The attainment of it is for those who rise 
to higher things and who have turned toward it and 
have put off the things which we put on in our de- 
scent, just as for those who enter the innermost 
recesses of the temple there are lustrations and 
putting off of garments until one finally goes up 
naked, until one in the ascent passing beyond every- 
thing which is alien to God, by himself alone sees 
only that which is unalloyed, simple, pure, upon 
which all things depend, to which all look, and 
through which all are and live and think. For it is 
the cause of life and mind and existence. Then if 
one should see this, what love would he experience, 
what desire, wishing to be united with it, and with 
what joy would he be overwhelmed! It is possible 
for one who does not yet behold it to desire it as the 
good. But it is the lot of the one who sees it to be 
thrilled with beauty, to be filled with wonder and 
pleasure, painlessly overwhelmed, and to love with 
a true love, pierced with longing, and to scorn other 
loves and despise those things which were con- 
sidered beautiful before. This is the sort of expe- 
rience which comes to those who have met with the 
forms of gods or divinities ; no longer can they en- 

"Ibid., I, 7. 



Mysticism — Neo-Platonism 237 

dure in the same old way the beauties of other 
bodies. 

What should we think if one should behold the 
very essence of beauty, in its own purity, not joined 
to flesh or body, not on earth, not in heaven, 
but where it is pure? For all these things are ex- 
traneous, and composite, not first principles, but de- 
rived from the First Principle, If then one should 
behold that which supplies all, and remaining by 
itself gives out but receives nothing into itself, con- 
tinuing in the contemplation of such an object, and 
enjoying it, becoming like it, what further beauty 
could he want? For this, being the very essence 
of beauty and its first principle, makes its lovers 
beautiful, and makes them lovely: The greatest and 
supreme contest which presents itself to the soul is 
for this ; in behalf of this is every labor done, that 
one may not be without a share in the highest con- 
templation. And he who catches sight of it is 
blessed, having beheld the blessed vision. Unhappy 
is he who gains it not. For he is not unfortunate 
who does not meet with beautiful colors or bodies, 
nor power nor authority, nor he who does not gain 
a kingdom, but he who misses this alone for the at- 
tainment of which one ought to let go a kingdom, 
and even authority over all the earth and sea and 
heaven, if abandoning these things and disdaining 
them and turning to that Other one might attain 
the vision of it. 



CHAPTER XI 

EARLY CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY 

A. Christian Ethics. 

The spirit of early Christian ethics is typified in 
the following- passage from the "sermon on the 
mount" : 

And^ seeing the multitudes, he went up into the 
mountain : and when he had" sat down, his disciples 
came unto him : and he opened his mouth and taught 
them, saying, 

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be 
comforted. 

Blessed are the meek : for they shall inherit the 
earth. 

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after 
righteousness: for they shall be filled. 

Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain 
mercy. 

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see 
God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be 
called sons of God. 



^Matthew V : 1-48; from the American Standard Edition 
of the Revised Bible, 1901, Thomas Nelson and Sons; used 
by permission. 

(238) 



Early Christian Philosophy 239 

Blessed are they that have been persecuted for 
righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven. 

Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and 
persecute you, and say all manner of evil against 
you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceed- 
ing glad : for great is your reward in heaven : for 
so persecuted they the prophets that were before 
you. 

Ye are the salt of the earth : but if the salt have 
lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is 
thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and 
trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the 
world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither 
do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel, but 
on the stand ; and it shineth unto all that are in the 
house. Even so let your light shine before men; 
that they may see your good works, and glorify your 
Father who is in heaven. 

Think not that I came to destroy the law or the 
prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. For 
verily I say unto you. Till heaven and earth pass 
away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away 
from the law, till all things be accomplished. Who- 
soever therefore shall break one of these least com- 
mandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called 
least in the kingdom of heaven : but whosoever shall 
do and teach them, he shall be called great in 
the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that 
except your righteousness shall exceed the right- 
eousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in 
no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. 



240 Readings in Philosophy 

Ye have heard that it was said to them of old 
time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill 
shall be in dang-er of the judgment: but I say unto 
you, that every one who is angry with his brother 
shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever 
shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of 
the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, 
shall be in danger of the hell of fire. If therefore 
thou art offering thy g-ift at the altar, and there 
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against 
thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go 
thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and 
then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine 
adversary quickly, while thou art with him in the 
way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the 
judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and 
thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, 
Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou 
have paid the last farthing. 

Ye have heard that it was said. Thou shalt not 
commit adultery: but I say unto you, that every 
one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath 
committed adultery with her already in his heart. 
And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck 
it out, and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for 
thee that one of thy members should perish, and 
not thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right 
hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it 
from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of 
thy members should perish, and not thy whole body 
go into hell. It was said also. Whosoever shall put 
away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce- 
nient : but I say unto you, that every one that putteth 



Early Chjistian Philosophy 241 

away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, 
maketh her an adulteress: and whosoever shall 
marry her when she is put away committeth 
adultery. 

Again, ye have heard that it was said to them 
of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but 
shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths : but I say 
unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the heaven, 
for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it 
is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it 
is the city of the Great King. Neither shalt thou 
swear by thy head, for thou canst not make one 
hair white or black. But let your speech be. Yea, 
yea; Nay, nay; and whatsoever is more than these 
is of the evil one. 

Ye have heard that it was said. An eye for an 
eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you. 
Resist not him that is evil : but whosoever smiteth 
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 
And if any man would go to law with thee, and 
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 
And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go 
with him two. Give to him that asketh thee, and 
from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou 
away. 

Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy : but I say unto 
you. Love your enemies, and pray for them that 
persecute you ; that ye may be sons of your Father 
who is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on 
the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you, 



242 Readings in Philosophy 

what reward have ye? do not even the publicans 
the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, 
what do ye more than others? do not even the Gen- 
tiles the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as 
your heavenly Father is perfect. 

B. The Crucifixion and Resurrection. 

What is perhaps the earliest of the gospel ac- 
counts of these important aspects of Christian doc- 
trine is contained in the following section of the 
Gospel of Mark: 

And- straightway in the morning the chief priests 
with the elders and scribes, and the whole council, 
held a consultation, and bound Jesus, and carried 
him away, and delivered him up to Pilate. And 
Pilate asked him. Art thou the king of the Jews? 
And he answering saith unto him, Thou sayest. 
And the chief priests accused him of many things. 
And Pilate again asked him, saying, Answerest 
Thou nothing? behold how many things they ac- 
cuse thee of. But Jesus no more answered any- 
thing; insomuch that Pilate marvelled. Now at 
the feast he used to release unto them one prisoner, 
whom they asked of him. And there was one called 
Barabbas, lying bound with them that had made in- 
surrection, men who in the insurrection had com- 
mitted murder. And the multitude went up and 
began to ask him to do as he was wont to do unto 
them. And Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye 
that I release unto you the King of the Jews? For 



^Mark XV : 1-XVI : 8; American Standard Edition, cited 
above. 



Early Christian Philosophy 243 

he perceived that for envy the chief priests had de- 
livered him up. But the chief priests stirred up 
the multitude, that he should rather release Barab- 
bas unto them. And Pilate again answered and 
said unto them, What then shall I do unto him 
whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they 
cried out again, Crucify him. And Pilate said unto 
them. Why, what evil hath he done ? But they cried 
out exceedingly. Crucify him. And Pilate, wishing 
to content the multitude, released unto them Barab- 
bas, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged 
him, to be crucified.. 

And the soldiers led him away within the court, 
which is the Praetorium; and they called together 
the whole band. And they clothed him with purple, 
and platting a crown of thorns, they put it on him ; 
and they began to salute him, Hail, King of the 
Jews! And they smote his head with a reed, and 
spat upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped 
him. And when they had mocked him, they took 
off from him the purple, and put on him his gar- 
ments. And they lead him out to crucify him. 

And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, 
coming from the country, the father of Alexander 
and Rufus, to go with them, that he might bear his 
cross. 

And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, 
which is, being interpreted. The place of a skull. 
And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh : but 
he received it not. And they crucify him, and part 
his garments among them, casting lots upon them, 
what each should take. And it was the third hour, 
and they crucified him. And the superscription of 



244 Readings in Philosophy 

his accusation was written over, the king of 
THE JEWS. And with him they crucify two rob- 
bers ; one on his right hand, and one on his left. 
And they that passed by railed on him, wagging 
their heads, and saying, Ha! thou that destroyest 
the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thy- 
self, and come down from the cross. In like man- 
ner also the chief priests mocking him among them- 
selves with the scribes said, He saved others; him- 
self he cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of 
Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may 
see and believe. And they that were crucified with 
him reproached him. 

And when the sixth hour was come, there was 
darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 
Eloi, Elod, lama sabachthani? which is, being inter- 
preted. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
me? And some of them that stood by, when they 
heard it, said. Behold he calleth Elijah. And one 
ran, and filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on 
a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let be; let 
us see whether Elijah cometh to take him down. 
And Jesus uttered a loud voice, and gave up the 
ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in two, 
from the top to the bottom. And when the cen- 
turion, who stood by over against him, saw that he 
so gave up the ghost, he said. Truly this man was 
the son of God. And there were also women be- 
holding from afar: among whom were both Mary 
Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less 
and of Joses, and Salome; who, when he was in 
Galilee, followed him, and ministered unto him ; and 



Early Christian Philosophy 245 

many other women that came up with him unto 
Jerusalem. 

And when even was now come, because it was the 
Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 
there came Joseph of Arimathaea, a councillor of 
honorable estate, who also himself was looking for 
the kingdom of God ; and he boldly went unto Pilate, 
and asked for the body of Jesus, And Pilate mar- 
velled if he were already dead : and calling unto him 
the centurion, he asked him whether he had been 
any while dead. And when he learned it of the 
centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And 
he bought a linen cloth, and taking him down, wound 
him in the linen cloth, and laid him in a tomb which 
had been hewn out of a rock; and he rolled a stone 
against the door of the tomb. And Mary Magdalene 
and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was 
laid. 

And when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalene, 
and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought 
spices, that they might come and anoint him. And 
very early on the first day of the week, they come 
to the tomb when the sun was risen. And they were 
saying among themselves, Who shall roll us away 
the stone from the door of the tomb ? and looking up, 
they see that the stone is rolled back: for it was 
exceeding great. And entering into the tomb, they 
saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed 
in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he 
said unto them, Be not amazed: ye seek Jesus, the 
Nazarene, who hath been crucified : he is risen ; he is 
not here: behold, the place where they laid him! 
But go, tell his disciples and Peter, He goeth before 



246 Readings in Philosophy 

you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said 
unto you. And they went out, and fled from the 
tomb; for trembling and astonishment had come 
upon them: and they said nothing to any one; for 
they were afraid. 

C. The Logos Doctrine. 

The^ interpretation of Christian doctrine in terms 
of Greek (Alexandrian) philosophy is reflected in 
the opening verses of the Gospel of John : 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word 
was with God, and the Word was God. The same 
was in the beginning with God. All things were 
made through him; and without him was not any- 
thing made that hath been made. In him was life ; 
and the life was the light of men. And the light 
shineth in the darkness; and the darkness appre- 
hended it not. There came a man, sent from God, 
whose name was John. The same came for wit- 
ness, that he might bear witness of the light, that 
all might believe through him. He was not the light, 
but came that he might bear witness of the light. 
There was the true light, even the light which 
lighteth every man, coming into the world. He was 
in the world, and the world was made through him, 
and the world knew him not. He came unto his 
own, and they that were his own received him not. 
But as many as received, him, to them gave he the 
right to become children of God, even to them that 
believe on his name: who were born not of blood, 
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 



^John I : 1-14; American Standard Version, cited above. 



Early Christian Philosophy 247 

but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt 
among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the 
only begotten from the Father), full of grace and 
truth. 

D. Paul's Theology. 

Paul's interpretation of the meaning of the death 
and resurrection is summarised in the following 
chapter from his first letter to the Corinthians : 

Now- I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel 
which I preached unto you, which also ye received, 
wherein also ye stand, by which also ye are saved, 
if ye hold fast the word which I preached unto you, 
except ye believed in vain. For I delivered unto 
you first of all that which also I received : that Christ 
died for our sins according to the scriptures; and 
that he was buried; and that he hath been raised 
on the third day according to the scriptures ; and 
that he appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; then 
he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, 
of whom the greater part remain until now, but 
some are fallen asleep ; then he appeared to James ; 
then to all the apostles ; and last of all, as to the 
child untimely born, he appeared to me also. For 
I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to 
be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church 
of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: 
and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not 
found vain; but I labored more abundantly than 
they all : yet not I, but the grace of God which was 



"I Corinthians XV; American Standard Version, cited 
above. 



248 . Readings in Philosophy 

with me. Whether then it be I or they, so we 
preach, and so ye believed. 

Now if Christ is preached that he hath been raised 
from the dead, how say some among you that there 
is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no 
resurrection of the dead, neither hath Christ been 
raised: and if Christ hath not been raised, then is 
our preaching vain, your faith also is vain. Yea, 
and we are found false witnesses of God; because 
we witnessed of God that he raised up Christ : whom 
he raised not up, if so be that the dead are not 
raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither hath 
Christ been raised : and if Christ hath not been 
raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins. 
Then they also that are fallen asleep in Christ have 
perished. If we have only hoped in Christ in this 
life, we are of all men most pitiable. 

But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, 
the firstf ruits of them that are asleep. For since by 
man came death, by man came also the resurrection 
of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in 
Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own 
order: Christ the first-fruits; then they that are 
Christ's, at his coming. Then cometh the end, when 
he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the 
Father; when he shall have abolished all rule and 
all authority and power. For he must reign, till he 
hath put all his enemies under his feet. The last 
enemy that shall be abolished is death. For, He put 
all things in subjection under his feet. But when 
he saith. All things are put in subjection, it is evi- 
dent that he is excepted who did subject all things 
unto him. And when all things have been subjected 



Early Christian Philosophy 249 

unto him, then shall the Son also himself be sub- 
jected to him that did subject all things unto him, 
that God may be all in all. 

Else what shall they do that are baptized for the 
dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then 
are they baptized for them? why do we also stand 
in jeopardy every hour? I protest by that glorying- 
in you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our 
Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I 
fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit 
me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and 
drink, for tomorrow we die. Be not deceived : Evil 
companionships corrupt good morals. Awake to 
soberness righteously, and sin not ; for some have no 
knowledge of God: I speak this to move you to 
shame. 

But some one will say, How are the dead raised? 
and with what manner of body do they come? Thou 
foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not 
quickened except it die : and that which thou sowest, 
thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare 
grain, it may chance of wheat, or some other kind ; 
but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, and 
to each seed a body of its own. All flesh is not the 
same flesh : but there is one flesh of men, and an- 
other flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and 
another of fishes. There are also celestial bodies, 
and bodies terrestrial : but the glory of the celestial 
is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of 
the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one 
star differeth from another star in glory. So also 



250 Readings in Philosophy 

is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in cor- 
ruption ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in 
dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weak- 
ness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural 
body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a 
natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also 
it is written, The first man Adam became a living 
soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 
Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that 
which is natural ; then that which is spiritual. The 
first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is 
of heaven. As is the earthy; such are they also 
that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are 
they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne 
the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image 
of the heavenly. 

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood can- 
not inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth cor- 
ruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a 
mystery : We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be 
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at 
the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and 
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall 
be changed. For this corruptible must put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal must put on immor- 
tality. But when this corruptible shall have put on 
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on im- 
mortality, then shall come to pass the saying that 
is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. 
death, where is thy victory? death, where is thy 
sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of 
sin is the law : but thanks be to God, who giveth us 



Early Christian Philosophy 251 

the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Where- 
fore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmov- 
able, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for- 
asmuch as ye know that your labor is not vain in 
the Lord. 



CHAPTER XII 

MEDIAEVAL PHILOSOPHY 

A. Augustine's Doctrine of Evil. 

CHAP. 9. — WHAT^ WE ARE TO BELIEVE. IN REGARD 
TO NATURE IT IS NOT NECESSARY FOR THE CHRISTIAN 
TO KNOW MORE THAN THAT THE GOODNESS OF THE 
CREATOR IS THE CAUSE OF ALL THINGS. 

When, then, the question is asked what we are 
to believe in regard to religion, it is not necessary 
to probe into the nature of things, as was done by 
those whom the Greeks call physici; nor need we 
be in alarm lest the Christian should be ignorant 
of the force and number of the elements, — the 
motion, and order, and eclipses of the heavenly 
bodies; the form of the heavens; the species and 
the natures of animals, plants, stones, fountains, 
rivers, mountains; about chronology and distances; 
the signs of coming storms; and a thousand other 
things which those philosophers either have found 
out, or think they have found out. For even these 
men themselves, endowed though they are with so 
much genius, burning with zeal, abounding in 
leisure, tracking some things by the aid of human 
conjecture, searching into others with the aids of 
history and experience, have not found out all 



^Augustine, Enchiridion, Chapters 9-13; translation of 
J. F. Shaw, in the Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene 
Fathers; copyright 1917, by Charles Scribner's Sons; re- 
printed by permission of the publishers. 

(252) 



Mediaeval Philosophy 253 

things; and even their boasted discoveries are 
oftener mere guesses than certain knowledge. It 
is enough for the Christian to believe that the only 
cause of all created things, whether heavenly or 
earthly, whether visible or invisible, is the goodness 
of the Creator, the one true God ; and that nothing 
exists but Himself that does not derive its existence 
from Him ; and that He is the Trinity — to-wit, the 
Father, and the Son begotten of the Father, and the 
Holy Spirit proceeding from the same Father, but 
one and the same Spirit of Father and Son. 

CHAP. 10. THE SUPREMELY GOOD CREATOR MADE 
ALL THINGS GOOD. 

By the Trinity, thus supremely and equally and 
unchangeably good, all things were created; and 
these are not supremely and equally and unchange- 
ably good, but yet they are good, even taken sepa- 
rately. Taken as a whole, however, they are very 
good, because their ensemble constitutes the uni- 
verse in all its wonderful order and beauty. 

CHAP. 11. WHAT IS CALLED EVIL IN THE UNIVERSE 
IS BUT THE ABSENCE OF GOOD. 

And in the universe, even that which is called 
evil, when it is regulated and put in its own place, 
only enhances our admiration of the good; for we 
enjoy and value the good more when we compare it 
with the evil. For the Almighty God, who, as even 
the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over 
all things, being Himself supremely good, would 
never permit the existence of anything evil among 
his works, if He were not so omnipotent and good 
that he can bring good even out of evil. For what 



254 Readings in Philosophy^ 

is that which we call evil but the absence of good? 
In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean 
nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure 
is effected, that does not mean that the evils which 
were present — namely, the diseases and wounds — 
go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they 
altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease 
is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly sub- 
stance, — the flesh itself being a substance, and 
therefore something good, of which those evils — 
that is, — privations of the good which we call 
health — are accidents. Just in the same way, what 
are called vices in the soul are nothing but priva- 
tions of natural good. And when they are cured, 
they are not transferred elsewhere: when they 
cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist 
anywhere else. 

CHAP. 12. ALL BEINGS WERE MADE GOOD, BUT NOT 
BEING MADE PERFECTLY GOOD, ARE LIABLE TO COR- 
RUPTION. 

All things that exist, therefore, seeing that the 
Creator of them all is supremely good, are them- 
selves good. But because they are ,not, like their 
Creator, supremely and unchangeably good, their 
good may be diminished and increased. But for 
good to be diminished is an evil, although, however 
much it may be diminished, it is necessary, if the 
being is to continue, that some good should remain 
to constitute the being. For however small or of 
whatever kind the being may- be, the good which 
makes it a being cannot be destroyed without de- 
stroying the being itself. An uncorrupted nature 
is justly held in esteem. But if, still further, it be 



Mediaeval Philosophy 255 

incorruptible, it is undoubtedly considered of still 
higher value. When it is corrupted, however, its 
corruption is an evil, because it is deprived of some 
sort of good. For if it be deprived of no good, it 
receives no injury; but it does receive injury, there- 
fore it is deprived of good. Therefore, so long as 
a being is in process of corruption, there is in it 
some good of which it is being deprived; and if a 
part of the being should remain which cannot be 
corrupted, this will certainly be an incorruptible 
being, and accordingly the process of corruption will 
result in the manifestation of this great good. But 
if it do not cease to be corrupted, neither can it 
cease to possess good of which corruption may de- 
prive it. But if it should be thoroughly and com- 
pletely consumed by corruption, there will then be 
no good left, because there will be no being. Where- 
fore corruption can consume the good only by con- 
suming the being. Every being, therefore, is a 
good; a great good, if it can not be corrupted; a 
little good, if it can : but in any case, only the foolish 
or ignorant will deny that it is a good. And if it 
be wholly consumed by corruption, then' the corrup- 
tion itself must cease to exist, as there is no being 
left in which it can dwell. 

CHAP. 13. THERE CAN BE NO EVIL WHERE THERE IS 
NO GOOD ; AND AN EVIL MAN IS AN EVIL GOOD. 

Accordingly there is nothing of what we call evil, 
if there be nothing good. But a good which is 
wholly without evil is a perfect good. A good, on 
the other hand, which contains evil is a faulty or 
imperfect good; and there can be no evil where 



256 Readings in Philosophy 

there is no good. From all this we arrive at the 
curious result: that since every being, so far as it 
is a being, is good, when we say that a faulty being 
is an evil being, we just seem to say that what is 
good is evil, and that nothing but what is good can 
be evil, seeing that every being is good, and that no 
evil can exist except in a being. Nothing, then, can 
be evil except something which is good. And al- 
though this, when stated, seems to be a contradic- 
tion, yet the strictness of reasoning leaves us no 
escape from the conclusion. We must, however, be- 
ware of incurring the prophetic condemnation: 
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil: 
that put darkness for light, and light for darkness : 
that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter." And 
yet our Lord says: "An evil man out of the evil 
treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is 
evil". Now, what is an ^vil man but an evil being? 
for a man is a being. Now, if a man is a, good thing 
because he is a being, what is an evil man but an evil 
good? Yet, when we accurately distinguish these 
two things, we find that it is not because he is a 
man that he is an evil, or because he is wicked that 
he is good ; but that he is a good because he is a man, 
and an evil because he is wicked. Whoever, then, 
says, "To be a man is an evil", or "To be wicked is 
a good", falls under the prophetic denunciation: 
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil !" 
For he condemns the work of God, which is the 
man, and praises the defect of man, which is the 
wickedness. Therefore every being, even if it be 
a defective one, in so far as it is a being is good, 
and in so far as it is defective is an evil. 



Mediaeval Philosophy 257 

B. The Relations of Faith and Understand- 
ing; AND THE ONTOLOGICAL PROOF. 

Anselm here gives a classic statement, typical of 
the mediaeval mode of presentation, of these im- 
portant doctrines, representing the view "credo ut 
intelligam", and the classic proof of the existence of 
God: 

Be^ it mine to look up to thy light, even from afar, 
even from the depths. Teach me to seek thee, and 
reveal thyself to me, when I seek thee, for I cannot 
seek thee, except thou teach me, nor find thee, except 
thou reveal thyself. Let me seek thee in longing, 
let me long for thee in seeking; let me find thee in 
love, and love thee in finding. Lord, I acknowledge 
and I thank thee, that thou hast created me in this 
thine image, in order that I may be mindful of thee, 
may conceive of thee, and love thee ; but that image 
has been so consumed and wasted away by vices, 
and obscured by the smoke of wrongdoing, that it 
cannot achieve that for which it was made, except 
thou renew it, and create it anew. I do not en- 
deavor, Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in 
no wise do I compare my understanding with that; 
but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, 
which my heart believes and loves. For I do not 
seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe 
in order to understand. For this also I believe, — 
that unless I believed, I should not understand. 



'Anselm, Proslogium, Chapter 1 (end) -chapter 4; trans- 
lated by S. N. Deane, 1903; reprinted by permission of the 
Open Court Publishing Co. 



258 Readings in Philosophy 

CHAPTER II 

Truly there is a God, although the fool hath said in his 
heart, There is no God. 

And so, Lord, do thou, who dost give understand- 
ing to faith, give me, so far as thou knowest it to be 
profitable, to understand that thou art as we believe; 
and that thou art that which we believe. And, 
indeed, we believe that thou art a being than which 
nothing greater can be conceived. Or is there no 
such nature, since the fool hath said in his heart, 
there is no God? (Psalms xiv. 1). But, at any 
rate, this very fool, when he hears of this being of 
which I speak — a being than which nothing greater 
can be conceived — understands what he hears, and 
what he understands is in his understanding; al- 
though he does not understand it to exist. 

For, it is one thing for an object to be in the 
understanding, and another to understand that the 
dbject exists. When a painter first conceives of 
what he will afterwards perform, he has it in his 
understanding, but he does not yet understand it 
to be, because he has not yet performed it. But 
after he has made the painting, he both has it in his 
understanding, and he understands that it exists, 
because he has made it. 

Hence, even the fool is convinced that something 
exists in the understanding, at least, than which 
nothing greater can be conceived. For, when he 
hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is 
understood, exists in the understanding. And as- 
suredly that, than which nothing greater can be 
conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. 



Mediaeval Philosophy 259 

For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: 
then it can be conceived to exist in reality ; which is 
greater. 

Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can 
be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the 
very being, than which nothing greater can be con- 
ceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. 
But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is 
no doubt that there exists a being, than which noth- 
ing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in 
the understanding and in reality. 

CHAPTER III 

God cannot be conceived not to exist. — God is that, than 
which nothing greater can be conceived. — That which can 
be conceived not to exist is not God. 

And it assuredly exists so truly, that it cannot be 
conceived not to exist. For, it is possible to con- 
ceive of a being which can not be conceived not to 
exist; and this is greater than one which can be 
conceived not to exist. Hence, if that, than which 
nothing greater can be conceived, can be conceived 
not to exist, it is not that than which nothing greater 
can be conceived. But this is an irreconcilable con- 
tradiction. There is, then, so truly a being than 
which nothing greater can be conceived to exist, that 
it cannot even be conceived not to exist ; and this be- 
ing thou art, Lord, our God, 

So truly, therefore, dost thou exist, Lord, my 
God, that thou canst not be conceived not to exist; 
and rightly. For, if a mind could conceive of a 
being better than thee, the creature would rise above 
the Creator ; and this is most absurd. And, indeed. 



260 Readings in Philosophy 

whatever else there is, except thee alone, can be con- 
ceived not to exist. To thee alone, therefore, it be- 
longs to exist more truly than all other beings, and 
hence in a higher degree than all others. For, what- 
ever else exists does not exist so truly, and hence in 
a less degree it belongs to it to exist. Why, then, has 
the fool said in his heart, there is no God (Psalms 
xiv. 1), since it is so evident, to a rational mind, 
that thou dost exist in the highest degree of all? 
Why, except that he is dull and a fool? 

CHAPTER IV 

How the fool has said in his heart what cannot be con- 
ceived. — A thing may be conceived in two ways: (1) when 
the word signifying it is conceived; (2) when the thing itself 
is understood. As far as the word goes, God can be con- 
ceived not to exist; in reality he cannot. 

But how has the fool said in his heart what he 
could not conceive ; or how is it that he could not con- 
ceive what he said in his heart? since it is the same 
to say in the heart and to conceive. 

But, if really, nay, since really, he both conceived, 
because he said in his heart; and did not say in his 
heart, because he could not conceive; there is more 
than one way in which a thing is said in the heart or 
conceived. For, in one sense, an object is conceived, 
when the word signifying it is conceived; and in 
another, when the very entity, which the object is, 
is understood. 

In the former sense, then, God can be conceived 
not to exist; but in the latter, not at all. For no 
one who understands what fire and water are can 
conceive fire to be water, in accordance with the 



Mediaeval Philosophy 261 

nature of the facts themselves, although this is pos- 
sible according to the words. So, then, no one who 
understands what God is can conceive that God does 
not exist ; although he says these words in his heart, 
either without any, or with some foreign, significa- 
tion. For, God is that than which a greater cannot 
be conceived. And he who thoroughly understands 
this, assuredly understands that this being so truly 
exists, that not even in concept can it be non- 
existent.. Therefore, he who understands that God 
so exists, cannot conceive that he does not exist. 

I thank thee, gracious Lord, I thank thee ; because 
what I formerly believed by thy bounty, I now so 
understand by thine illumination, that if I were 
unwilling to believe that thou dost exist, I should 
not be able not to understand this to be true. 

C. Realism. 

The following passage gives a statement of modi- 
fied realism from the standpoint of the Church in 
the twelfth century A. D. : 

WHETHER^ THE INTELLIGIBLE SPECIES ARE DERIVED 
BY THE SOUL FROM CERTAIN SEPARATE FORMS? 

We proceed thus to the Fourth Article : — 
Objection 1. It seems that the intelligible species 

are derived by the soul from some separate forms. 

For whatever is such by participation is caused by 



^ Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part I, Third 
Number, Question Ixxxiv, Article 4; translation of the Do- 
minican Fathers, 1912; reprinted by permission of Benziger 
Brothers, New York; and of Burns, Gates and Washbourne, 
London. 

18 



262 Readings in Philosophy 

what is such essentially; for instance, that which 
is on fire is reduced to fire as the cause thereof. But 
the intellectual soul forasmuch as it is actually un- 
derstanding, participates in the thing understood: 
for, in a way, the' intellect in act is the thing under- 
stood in act. Therefore what in itself and in its 
essence is understood in act, is the cause that the 
intellectual soul actually understands. Now that 
which in its essence is actually understood is a form 
existing without matter. Therefore the intelligible 
species, by which the soul understands, are caused 
by some separate forms. 

Obj. 2. Further, the intelligible is to the intel- 
lect, as the sensible is to the sense. But the sensible 
species which are in the senses, and by which we 
feel, are caused by the sensible object which exists 
actually outside the soul. Therefore the intelligible 
species by which our intellect understands, are 
caused by some things actually intelligible, existing 
outside the soul. But these can be nothing else than 
forms separate from matter. Therefore the intel- 
ligible forms of our intellect are derived from some 
separate substances. 

Obj. 3. Further, whatever is in potentiality is 
reduced to act by something actual. If, therefore, 
our intellect, previously in potentiality, actually un- 
derstands, this must needs be caused by some intel- 
lect which is always in act. But this is a separate 
intellect. Therefore the intelligible species, by which 
we actually understand, are caused by some separate 
substances. 

On the contrary, If this were true we should not 
need the senses in order to understand. And this 



Mediaeval Philosophy 263 

is proved to be false especially from the fact that if 
a man be wanting in a sense, he cannot have any 
knowledge of the sensibles corresponding to that 
sense. 

/ a7iswer that, Some have held that the intelligible 
species of our intellect are derived from certain 
separate forms or substances. And this in two 
ways. For Plato, as we have said, held that the 
forms of sensible things subsist by themselves with- 
out matter; for instance, the form of a man which 
he called per se man, and the form or idea of a 
horse which he called ??er se horse, and so forth. 
He said therefore that these forms are participated 
both by our soul and by corporeal matter; by our 
soul, to the effect of knowledge thereof, and by cor- 
poreal matter to the effect of existence: so that, just 
as corporeal matter by participating the idea of a 
stone, becomes an individual stone, so our intellect, 
by participating the idea of a stone, is made to un- 
derstand a stone. Now participation of an idea 
takes place by some image of the idea in the partici- 
pator, just as a model is participated by a copy. So 
just as he held that the sensible forms, which are in 
corporeal matter, are derived from the ideas as cer- 
tain images thereof : so he held that the intelligible 
species of our intellect are images of the ideas, de- 
rived therefrom. And for this reason, as we have 
said above, he referred sciences and definitions to 
those ideas. 

But since it is contrary to the nature of sensible 
things that their forms should subsist without mat- 
ter, as Aristotle proves in many ways, Avicenna 
setting this opinion aside, held that the intelligible 



264 Readings in Philosophy 

species of all sensible things, instead of subsisting 
in themselves without matter, pre-exist immaterially 
in the separate intellects: from the first of which, 
said he, such species are derived by a second, and so 
on to the last separate intellect which he called the 
active intelligence, from which, according to him, 
intelligible species flow into our souls, and sensible 
species into corporeal matter. And so Avicenna 
agrees with Plato in this, that the intelligible species 
of our intellect are derived from certain separate 
forms ; but these Plato held to subsist of themselves, 
while Avicenna placed them in the active intelli- 
gence. They differ, too, in this respect, that 
Avicenna held that the intelligible species do not 
remain in our intellect after it has ceased actually 
to understand, and that it needs to turn (to the ac- 
tive intellect) in order to receive them anew. 
Consequently he does not hold that the soul has in- 
nate knowledge, as Plato, who held that the par- 
ticipated ideas remain immovably in the soul. 

But in this opinion no sufficient reason can be 
assigned for the soul being united to the body. For 
it cannot be said that the intellectual soul is united 
to the body for the sake of the body: for neither is 
form for the sake of matter, nor is the mover for 
the sake of the moved, but rather the reverse. Espe- 
cially does the body seem necessary to the intel- 
lectual soul, for the latter's proper operation which 
is to understand : since as to its being the soul does 
not depend on the body. But if the soul by its very 
nature had an inborn aptitude for receiving intel- 
ligible species through the influence of only certain 
separate principles, and were not to receive them 



Mediaeval Philosophy 265 

from the senses, it would not need the body in order 
to understand : wherefore to no purpose would it be 
united to the body. 

- But if it be said that our soul needs the senses 
in order to understand, through being in some way 
excited by them to the consideration of those things 
the intelligible species of which it receives from the 
separate principles : even this seems an insufficient 
explanation. For this excitation does not seem 
necessary to the soul, except in as far as it is over- 
come by sluggishness, as the Platonists expressed it, 
and by forgetfulness, through its union with the 
body. Consequently the reason of the union of the 
soul with the body still remains to be sought. 

And if it be said with Avicenna, that the senses 
are necessary to the soul, because by them it is 
roused to turn to the active intelligence from which 
it receives the species: neither is this a sufficient 
explanation. Because if it is natural for the soul 
to understand through species derived from the ac- 
tive intelligence, it follows that at times the soul of 
an individual wanting in one of the senses can turn 
to the active intelligence, either from the inclina- 
tion of its very nature, or through being aroused 
by another sense, to the effect of receiving the intel- 
ligible species of which the corresponding sensible 
species are wanting. And thus a man born blind 
could have knowledge of colours ; which is clearly 
untrue. We must therefore conclude that the intel- 
ligible species, by which our soul understands, are 
not derived from separate forms. 

Reply Ohj. 1. The intelligible species which fall 
to the share of our intellect are reduced, as to their 



266 Readings in Philosophy 

first cause, to a first principle which is by its essence 
intelligible — namely, God. But they proceed from 
that principle by means of the forms of sensible and 
material things, from which we gather knowledge, 
as Dionysius says. 

Reply Ohj. 2. Material things, as to the being 
which they have outside the soul, may be actually 
sensible, but not actually intelligible. Wherefore 
there is no comparison between sense and intellect. 

Reply Ohj. 3. Our passive intellect is reduced 
from potentiality to act by some being in act, that 
is, by the active intellect, which is a power of the 
soul as we have said; and not by a separate intel- 
ligence, as a proximate cause, although perchance 
as remote cause. 



CHAPTER XIII 

MODERN PHILOSOPHY: ITS SPIRIT. ITS CHIEF 
PROBLEMS AND STANDPOINTS 

A, In the nature of the case it being impossible 
to illustrate these except through the text of the re- 
maining part of the book the following bibliography 
is given to indicate some of the most useful discus- 
sions of the whole period in sum : 

Thilly, F., History of Philosophy, pages 250-254. 

Webb, C. C. J., History of Philosophy. 

Windelband, W., History of Philosophy , (trans- 
lated by Thilly) , 2nd edition revised, pages 348-354, 
378-9, 437-440, 529-531, 568-9, 623-527. 

Royce, J., The Spirit of Modern Philosophy , Lec- 
ture II, pages 27-41 (especially). 

Hoffding, H., History of Modern Philosophy, Vol. 
I, pages 3-9, 161-3, 209-211. 



(267) 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE PROBLEM OF REALITY 

A. The following' bibliography will suggest some 
of the best known elementary discussions of the 
problem in general : 

Perry, R. B., The Approach-to Philosophy , Chap- 
ter VI. 

James, W., Some Problems of Philosophy , Chap- 
ters II, III. 

Hibben, J. G., The Problems of Philosophy, Chap- 
ter III. 

Russell, B., The Problems of Philosophy, Chapters 
1-4. 

Hoffding, H., The Problems of Philosophy , Chap- 
ter 3. 

Paulsen, F., Introduction to Philosophy, pages 53- 
335. 

Windelband, W., History of Philosophy , pages 
399-425. 



(268) 



CHAPTER XV 

DUALISM 

A. Descartes on the Nature of the Mind. 

But^ what, then, am I ? A thinking thing, it has 
been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a 
thing that doubts, understands, conceives, aflinns, 
denies, wills, refuses, that imagines also, and per- 
ceives. Assuredly it is not little, if all these proper- 
ties belong to my nature. But why should they not 
belong to it? Am I not that very being who now 
doubts of almost everything; who, for all that, un- 
derstands and conceives certain things ; who affirms 
one alone as true, and denies the others ; who desires 
to know more of them, and does not wish to be de- 
ceived; who imagines many things, sometimes even 
despite his will ; and is likewise percipient of many, 
as if through the medium of the senses. Is there 
nothing of all this as true as that I am, even al- 
though I should be always dreaming, and although 
he who gave me being employed all his ingenuity to 
deceive me? Is there also any one of these at- 
tributes that can be properly distinguished from my 
thought, or that can be said to be separate from my- 
self? For it is of itself so evident that it is I who 
doubt, I who understand, and I who desire, that it 



^ Descartes, Meditations, II ; translated by J, Veitch, 1905 ; 
reprinted by permission of the Open Court Publishing Co. 

(269) 



270 Readings in Philosophy 

is here unnecessary to add anything by way of ren- 
dering it more clear. And I am as certainly the 
same being who imagines; for, although it may be 
(as I before supposed) that nothing I imagine is 
true, still the power of imagination does not cease 
really to exist in me and to form part of my thought. 
In fine, I am the same being who perceives, that 
is, who apprehends certain objects as by the organs 
of sense, since, in truth, I see light, hear a noise, and 
feel heat. But it will be said that these presenta- 
tions are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be 
so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see 
light, hear a noise, and feel heat ; this cannot be 
false, and this is what in me is properly called per- 
ceiving {sentire) , which is nothing else than think- 
ing. From this I begin to know what I am with 
somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than 
heretofore. 

B. Descartes on the Existence of Material 
Things. 

Having determined to doubt away everything pos- 
sible, and to accept nothing for which the evidence 
is not clear and distinct Descartes finds the existence 
of the material world by no means self-evident : 

I- find in myself diverse faculties of thinking that 
have each their special mode: for example, I find I 
possess the faculties of imagining and perceiving, 
without which I can indeed clearly and distinctly 
conceive myself as entire, but I cannot reciprocally 
conceive them without conceiving myself, that is to 

Uhid., VI. 



Dualism 271 

say, without an intelligent substance in which they 
reside, for in the notion we have of them, or to use 
the terms of the schools in their formal concept, 
they comprise some sort of intellection; whence I 
perceive that they are distinct from myself as modes 
are from things. I remark likewise certain other 
faculties, as the power of changing place, of assum- 
ing diverse figures, and the like, that cannot be con- 
ceived and cannot therefore exist, any more than the 
preceding, apart from a substance in which they 
inhere. It is very evident, however, that these 
faculties, if they really exist, must belong to some 
corporeal or extended substance, since in their clear 
and distinct concept there is contained some sort of 
extension, but no intellection at all. Farther, I can- 
not doubt but that there is in me a certain passive 
faculty of perception, that is, of receiving and tak- 
ing knowledge of the ideas of sensible things; but 
this would be useless to me if there did not also 
exist in me, or in some other thing, another active 
faculty capable of forming and producing those 
ideas. But this active faculty cannot be in me in 
as far as I am but a thinking thing, seeing that it 
does not presuppose thought, and also that those 
ideas are frequently produced in my mind without 
my contributing to it in any way, and even fre- 
quently contrary to my will. This faculty must 
therefore exist in some substance different from me, 
in which all the objective reality of the ideas that 
are produced by this faculty, is contained formally 
or eminently, as I before remarked; and this sub- 
stance is either a body, that is to say, a corporeal 
nature in which is contained formally and in effect 



272 Readings in Philosophy 

all that is objectively and by representation in 
those ideas ; or it is God himself, or some other creat- 
ure, of a rank superior to body, in which the same 
is contained eminently. But as God is no deceiver, 
it is manifest that he does not of himself and imme- 
diately communicate those ideas to me, nor even by 
the intervention of any creature in which their ob- 
jective reality is not formally, but only eminently, 
contained. For as he has given me no faculty where- 
by I can discover this to be the case, but, on the 
contrary, a very strong inclination to believe that 
those ideas arise from corporeal objects, I do not 
see how he could be vindicated from the charge of 
deceit, if in truth they proceeded from any other 
source, or were produced by other causes than cor- 
poreal things : and accordingly it must be concluded, 
that corporeal objects exist. Nevertheless they are 
not perhaps exactly such as we perceive by the 
senses, for their comprehension by the senses is, in 
many instances, very obscure and confused ; but it is 
at least necessary to admit that all which I clearly 
and distinctly conceive as in them, that is, generally 
speaking, all that is comprehended in the object of 
speculative geometry, really exists external to me. 

C. Interaction of Mind and Body. 
Descartes describes the interaction of soul and 
body as follows: 

Let" us understand then that the soul has its prin- 
cipal seat in the small gland which is in the center 



^ Descartes, Les Passions de VAme, XXXIV ; translated 
from the text of Adam and Tannery, Paris, 1909. 



Dualism 273 

of the brain, whence its influence radiates into all 
the rest of the body through the intermediation of 
the animal spirits, nerves, and even the blood, which 
participating in the modifications of the spirits is 
able to carry them through the arteries to all the 
members. And recall what has been said about the 
mechanism of our body, namely that the small nerve 
filaments are so distributed through all its parts, 
that on occasion of the various movements which 
are excited in them by sensible objects they open in 
various ways the pores of the brain and cause the 
animal spirits which are contained in the cavities of 
the brain to enter in various ways into the muscles ; 
and by this means they are able to move the mem- 
bers in all the various ways in which they can be 
moved. All the other causes also which can affect 
the spirits in various ways serve to conduct them 
into various muscles. Add to this that the little 
gland which is the principal seat of the soul is so 
suspended among the cavities of the brain which 
contain these spirits, that it can be moved by them 
in as many difl'erent ways as there are sensible 
diflferences in the objects. But it can also be moved 
in various ways by the soul, which is of such nature 
that it receives as many different impressions from 
it, that is, that it has as many different perceptions, 
as there are different movements in this gland. 
Vice versa the mechanism of the body is so con- 
structed that this gland, from the mere fact that it 
is variously moved by the soul, or by whatever other 
cause this can occur, impels the surrounding spirits 
toward the pores of the brain, which conduct them 



274 Readings in Philosophy 

by the nerves to the muscles, and by these means 
it causes them to move the members, 

D. Locke on the Ideas of Solidity and Spirit. 

The genesis of these ideas, which in Locke's judg- 
ment are the most essential, is described by him 
thus: 

IDEA OF SOLIDITY 

1. We^ receive this Idea from Touch. — The idea 
of solidity we receive by our touch; and it arises 
from the resistance which we find in body to the 
entrance of any other body into the place it pos- 
sesses, till it has left it. There is no idea which we 
receive more constantly from sensation than solidity. 
Whether we move or rest, in what posture soever we 
are, we always feel something under us that sup- 
ports us, and hinders our further sinking down- 
wards ; and the bodies which we daily handle make 
us perceive, that whilst they remain between them, 
they do, by an insurmountable force, hinder the 
approach of the parts of our hands that press them. 
That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies, 
when they are moved one towards another, I call 
solidity. I will not dispute whether this acceptation 
of the word solid be nearer to its original significa- 
tion than that which mathematicians use it in; it 
suffices that I think the common notion of solidity 
will allow, if not justify, this use of it; but if any 
one think it better to call it impenetrability, he has 
my consent. Only I have thought the term solidity 



^ Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 
II, chapter iv; edition of 1854. 



Dualism 275 

the more proper to express this idea, not only be- 
cause of its vulgar use in that sense, but also be- 
cause it carries something more of positive in it 
than impenetrability, which is negative, and is per- 
haps more a consequence of solidity, than solidity 
itself. This, of all others, seems the idea most 
intimately connected with and essential to body, so 
as nowhere else to be found or imagined, but only 
in matter. And though our senses take no notice 
of it, but in masses of matter, of a bulk sufficient 
to cause a sensation in us ; yet the mind, having once 
got this idea from such grosser sensible bodies, 
traces it further, and considers it, as well as figure, 
in the minutest particle of matter that can exist; 
and finds it inseparably inherent in body, wherever 
or however modified. 

2. Solidity fills Space. — This is the idea which 
belongs to body, whereby we conceive it to fill space. 
The idea of which filling of space is, that where we 
imagine any space taken up by a solid substance, we 
conceive it so to possess it, that it excludes all other 
solid substances; and will forever hinder any other 
two bodies, that move towards one another in a 
straight line, from coming to touch one another, 
unless it removes from between them in a line not 
parallel to that which they move in. This idea of 
it, the bodies which we ordinarily handle sufficiently 
furnish us with. 

3. Distinct from Space. — This resistance, where- 
by it keeps other bodies out of the space which it 
possesses, is so great that no force, how great so- 
ever, can surmount it. All the bodies in the world, 
pressing a drop of water on all sides, will never be 



276 Readings in Philosophy 

able to overcome the resistance which it will make, 
soft as it is, to their approaching one another, till 
it be removed out of their way : whereby our idea of 
solidity is distinguished both from pure space, which 
is capable neither of resistance nor motion ; and 
from the ordinary idea of hardness. For a man may 
conceive two bodies at a distance, so as they may 
approach one another, without touching or displac- 
ing any solid thing, till their superficies come to 
meet; whereby, I think, we have the clear idea of 
space without solidity. For (not to go as far as 
annihilation of any particular body) I ask, whether 
a man cannot have the idea of the motion of one 
single body alone, without any other succeeding 
immediately into its place? I think it is evident he 
can ; the idea of motion in one body no more includ- 
ing the idea of motion in another, than the idea of 
a square figure in one body includes the idea of a 
square figure in another. I do not ask, whether 
bodies do so exist, that the motion of one body can- 
not really be without the motion of another. To 
determine this either way, is to beg the question 
for or against a vacuum. But my question is, 
whether one cannot have the idea of one body 
moved, whilst others are at rest? And I think this 
no one will deny. If so, then the place it deserted 
gives us the idea of pure space without solidity, 
wherein any other body may enter, without either 
resistance or protrusion of anything. When the 
sucker in a pump is drawn, the space it filled in the 
tube is certainly the same whether any other body 
follows the motion of the sucker or not : nor does it 
imply a contradiction that, upon the motion of one 



Dualism 277 

body, another that is only contiguous to it should not 
follow it. The necessity of such a motion is built 
only on the supposition that the world is full; but 
not on the distinct ideas of space and solidity ; which 
are as different as resistance and not resistance, pro- 
trusion and not protrusion. And that men have 
ideas of space without a body, their very disputes 
about a vacuum plainly demonstrate. 

5. . 071 Solidity depend Impulse, Resistance, and 
Protrusion. — By this idea of solidity, is the exten- 
sion of body distinguished from the extension of 
space : the extension of body being nothing but 
the cohesion or continuity of solid, separable, mov- 
able parts ; and the extension of space, the con- 
tinuity of unsolid, inseparable, and immovable parts. 
Upon the solidity of bodies also depend their mutual 
impulse, resistance, and protrusion. Of pure space 
then, and solidity, there are several (amongst which 
I confess myself one) who persuade themselves they 
have clear and distinct ideas; and that they can 
think on space without any thing in it that resists 
or is protruded by body. This is the idea of pure 
space, which they think they have as clear as any 
idea they can have of the extension of body; the 
idea of the distance between the opposite parts of 
a concave superficies being equally as clear without, 
as with the idea of any solid parts between ; and on 
the other side, they persuade themselves that they 
have, distinct from that of pure space, the idea of 
something that fills space, that can be protruded by 
the impulse of other bodies, ^r resist their motion. 
If there be others that have not these two ideas dis- 
tinct, but confound them, and make but one of them, 

19 



278 Readings in Philosophy 

I know not how men, VN^ho have the same idea under 
different names, or different ideas under the same 
name, can in that case talk with one another; any- 
more than a man who, not being blind or deaf, has 
distinct ideas of the colour of scarlet and the sound 
of a trumpet, would discourse concerning scarlet col- 
our with the blind man I mentioned in another 
place, who fancied that the idea of scarlet was like 
the sound of a trumpet. 

6. What it is. — If any one asks me. What this 
solidity is, I send him to his senses to inform him: 
let him put a flint or a football between his hands, 
and then endeavor to join them, and he will know. 
If he thinks this not a sufficient explication of 
solidity, what it is, and wherein it consists ; I prom- 
ise to. tell him what it is, and wherein it consists, 
when he tells me what thinking is, or wherein it 
consists ; or explains to me what extension or motion 
is, which perhaps seems much easier. The simple 
ideas we have, are such as experience teaches them 
us; but if, beyond that, we endeavor by words to 
make them clearer in the mind, we shall succeed no 
better than if we went about to clear up the dark- 
ness of a blind man'^s mind by talking, and to dis- 
course into him the ideas of light and colours. The 
reason of this I shall show in another place. 

5. As'^ clear an Idea of Spiy^it as Body. — The 
same thing happens concerning the operations of the 
mind, viz., thinking, reasoning, fearing, etc., which 
we concluding not to subsist of themselves, nor ap- 
prehending how they ^n belong to body, or be pro- 



Ihid., Book II, ch. xxiii. 



Dualism 279 

duced by it, we are apt to think these the actions of 
some other substance, which we call spirit ; whereby 
yet it is evident that, having no other idea or notion 
of matter, but something wherein those many 
sensible qualities which affect our senses do subsist ; 
by supposing a substance wherein thinking, know- 
ing, doubting, and a power of moving, etc., do sub- 
sist, we have as clear a notion of the substance of 
spirit, as we have of body: the one being supposed 
to be (without knowing what it is) the substratum 
to those simple ideas we have from without; and 
the other supposed (with a like ignorance of what 
it is) to be the substratum to those operations which 
we experiment in ourselves within. It is plain then, 
that the idea of corporeal substance in matter is as 
remote from our conceptions and apprehensions, as 
that of spiritual substance or spirit: and therefore, 
from our not having any notion of the substance of 
spirit, we can no more conclude its non-existence, 
than we can, for the same reason, deny the existence 
of body ; it being as rational to affirm there is no 
body, because we have no clear and distinct idea of 
the substance of matter, as to say there is no spirit, 
because we have no clear and distinct idea of the 
substance of a spirit. 

Our^ observation employed either about external 
sensible objects, or about the internal operations of 
our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves, 
is that which supplies our understandings with all 
the materials of thinking. These two are the foun- 



Ibid., Book II, ch. i. 



280 Readings in Philosophy 

tains of knowledge from whence all the ideas we 
have or can naturally have do spring. 

3. The Objects of Sensation one Source of Ideas. 
— First, our senses, conversant about particular 
sensible objects, do convey into the mind several 
distinct perceptions of things, according to those 
various ways wherein those objects do affect them: 
and thus we come by those ideas we have, of yellow, 
white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all 
those which we call sensible qualities; which when 
I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they 
from external objects convey into the mind what 
produces there those perceptions. This great source 
of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon 
our senses, and derived by them to the understand- 
ing, I call SENSATION. 

4. The Operations of our Minds the other Source 
of them. — Secondly, the other fountain, from which 
experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas, 
is the perception of the operations of our own mind 
within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has 
got; which operations, when the soul comes to reflect 
on and consider, do furnish the understanding with 
another set of ideas,. which could not be had from 
things without; and such are perception, thinking, 
doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and 
all the different actings of our own minds ; which we 
being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do 
from these receive into our understandings as dis- 
tinct ideas, as we do from bodies affecting our 
senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly 
in himself; and though it be not sense, as having 
nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very 



Dualism 281 

like it, and might properly enough be called internal 
sense. But as I call the other Sensation, so I call 
this REFLECTION, the ideas it affords being such 
or.ly as the mind gets by reflecting on its own opera- 
tions within itself. By reflection then, in the fol- 
lowing part of this discourse, I would be understood 
to mean that notice which the mind takes of its own 
operations, and the manner of them; by reason 
whereof there come to be ideas of these operations 
in the understanding. These two, I say, viz., ex- 
ternal material things, as the objects of sensation; 
and the operations of our own minds within, as the 
objects of reflection; are to me the only originals 
from whence all our ideas take their beginnings. 
The term operations here I use in a large sense, as 
comprehending not barely the actions of the mind 
about its ideas, but some sort of passions arising 
sometimes from them, such as is the satisfaction 
or uneasiness arising from any thought. 

5. All our Ideas are of the one or the other of 
these. — The understanding seems to me not to have 
the least glimmering of any ideas which it does not 
receive from one of these two. External objects 
furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, 
which are all those different perceptions they pro- 
duce in us ; and the mind furnishes the understand- 
ing with ideas of its own operations. 

These, when we have taken a full survey of them, 
and their several modes, combinations, and rela- 
tions, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of 
ideas ; and that we have nothing in our minds which 
did not come in one of these two ways. Let any 
one examine his own thoughts, and thoroughly 



282 Readings in Philosophy 

search into his understanding ; and then let him tell 
me, whether all the original ideas he has there, are 
any other than of the objects of his senses, or of the 
operations of his mind, considered as objects of his 
reflection : and how great a mass of knowledge so- 
ever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon 
taking a strict view, see that he has not any idea 
in his mind, but what one of these two have im- 
printed ; though, perhaps, with infinite variety com- 
pounded and enlarged by the understanding, as we 
shall see hereafter. 



CHAPTER XVI 

MATERIALISM 

A. The Distinction Between Primary and 
Secondary Qualities. 

This distinction is not necessarily a part of ma- 
terialistic doctrine, though it is presupposed in the 
attempt to reduce all qualities of experience to the 
so-called "primary" ones. Locke's statement of the 
case is a classic one : 

7. Ideas'^ in the Mind, Qualities in Bodies. — To 
discover the nature of our ideas the better, and to 
discourse of them intelligibly, it will be convenient 
to distinguish them as they are ideas or perceptions 
in our minds, and as they are modifications of mat- 
ter in the bodies that cause such perceptions in us, 
that so we may not think (as perhaps usually is 
done) that they are exactly the images and resem- 
blances of something inherent in the subject; most 
of those of sensation being in the mind no more the 
likeness of something existing without us, than the 
names that stand for them are the likeness of our 
ideas, which yet upon hearing they are apt to excite 
in us. 

8. Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or is 
the immediate object of perception, thought, or un- 
derstanding, that I call idea ; and the power to pro- 



^ Locke, Essay, Book II, chapter viii. 
(283) 



284 Readifigs m Philosophy 

duce any idea in our mind, I call quality of the sub- 
ject wherein that power is. Thus a snowball hav- 
ing the power to produce in us the ideas of white, 
cold, and round, the power to produce those ideas in 
us, as they are in the snowball, I call qualities ; and 
as they are sensations or perceptions in our under- 
standings, I call them ideas ; which ideas, if I speak 
of sometimes as in the things themselves, I would be 
understood to mean those qualities in the objects 
which produce them in us. 

9. Primwru Qualities. — Qualities thus considered 
in bodies are, first, such as are utterly inseparable 
from the body, in what state soever it be; such as 
in all the alterations and changes it suffers, all the 
force can be used upon it, it constantly keeps; and 
such as sense constantly finds in ever^'- particle of 
matter which has bulk enough to be perceived, and 
the mind finds inseparable from every particle of 
matter, though less than to make itself singly be 
perceived by our senses, v. g., take a grain of wheat, 
divide it into two parts, each part has still solidity, 
extension, figure, and mobility; divide it again, and 
it retains still the same qualities ; and so divide it 
on till the parts become insensible, they must retain 
still each of them all those qualities. For division 
(which is all that a mill, or pestle, or any other 
body, does upon another, in reducing it to insensible 
parts) can never take away either solidity, exten- 
sion, figure, or mobility from any body, but only 
makes two or more distinct separate masses of mat- 
ter, of that which was but one before; all which 
distinct masses, reckoned as so many distinct bodies, 
after division, make a certain number. These I call 



Materialism 285 

orig-inal or primary qualities of body, which I think 
we may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz., 
solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and num- 
ber. 

10. Secondary Qualities. — Secondly, such qual- 
ities which in truth are nothing in the objects 
themselves, but powers to produce various sensa- 
tions in us by their primary qualities, i. e., by the 
bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible 
parts, as colours, sounds, tastes, etc., these I call 
secondary qualities. To these might be added a 
third sort, which are allowed to be barely powers, 
though they are as much real qualities in the sub- 
ject, as those which I, to comply with the common 
way of speaking, call qualities, but for distinction, 
secondary qualities. For the power in fire to pro- 
duce a new colour or consistency in wax or clay, by 
its primary qualities, is as much a quality in fire 
as the power it has to produce in me a new idea 
or sensation of warmth or burning, which I felt not 
before, by the same prim.ary qualities, viz., the bulk, 
texture, and motion of its insensible parts. 

11. Hoiv primary Qualities produce their Ideas. 
— The next thing to be considered is, how bodies 
produce ideas in us; and that is manifestly by im- 
pulse, the only way which we can conceive bodies to 
operate in, 

12. If then external objects be not united to our 
minds when they produce ideas therein, and yet we 
perceive these original qualities in such of them as 
singly fall under our senses, it is evident that some 
m.otion must be thence continued by our nerves or 
animal spirits, by some parts of our bodies to the 



286 Readings in Philosophy 

• 

brain, or the seat of sensation, there to produce in 
our minds the particular ideas We have of them. 
And since the extension, figure, number, and motion 
of bodies of an observable bigness, may be perceived 
at a distance by the sight, it is evident some singly 
imperceptible bodies must come from them to the 
eyes, and thereby convey to the brain some motion 
which produces these ideas which we have of them 
in us. 

13. How secondary. — After the same manner 
that the ideas of these original qualities are pro- 
duced in us, we may conceive that the ideas of sec- 
ondary qualities are also produced, viz., by the ope- 
rations of insensible particles on our senses. For it 
being manifest that there are bodies and good store 
of bodies, each whereof are so small, that we cannot 
by any of our senses discover either their bulk, 
figure, or motion as is evident in the particles of 
the air and water, and other extremely smaller than 
those, perhaps as much smaller than the particles 
of air and water, as the particles of air and water 
are smaller than peas or hailstones ; let us suppose 
at present, that the difi'erent motions and figures, 
bulk and number, of such particles, afi'ecting the 
several organs of our senses, produce in us those 
different sensations which we have from the colours 
and smells of bodies ; v. g., that a violet, by the 
impulse of such insensible particles of matter of 
peculiar figures and bulks, and in difi'erent degrees 
and modifications of their motions, causes the ideas 
of the blue color and sweet scent of that flower to 
be produced in our minds ; it being no more impos- 
sible to conceive that God should annex such ideas 



Materialism 287 

to such motions, with which they have no similitude, 
than that he should annex the idea of pain to the 
motion of a piece of steel dividing our flesh, with 
which the idea hath no resemblance. 

14. What I have said concerning colours and 
smells may be understood also of tastes and sounds, 
and other the like sensible qualities ; which, what- 
ever reality we by mistake attribute to them, are in 
truth nothing in the objects themselves, but powers 
to produce various sensations in us, and depend on 
those primary qualities, viz., bulk, figure, texture, 
and motion of parts as I have said. 

15. Ideas of primary Qualities are Resemblances; 
of secondary, not. — From whence I think it is easy 
to draw this observation, that the ideas of primary 
qualities of bodies are resemblances of them, and 
their patterns do really exist in the bodies them- 
selves ; but the ideas produced in us by these sec- 
ondary qualities have no resemblance of them at all. 
There is nothing like our ideas existing in the bodies 
themselves. They are in the bodies we denominate 
from them, only a power to produce those sensa- 
tions in us; and what is sweet, blue, or warm in 
idea, is but the certain bulk, figure, and motion of 
the insensible parts in the bodies themselves, which 
we call so. 

16. Flame is denominated hot and light ; snow, 
white and cold; and manna, white and sweet, from 
the ideas they produce in us; which qualities are 
commonly thought to be the same in those bodies 
that those ideas are in us, the one the perfect re- 
semblance of the other, as they are in a mirror ; and 
it would by most men be judged very extravagant 



288 Readings in Philosophy 

if one should say otherwise. And yet he that will 
consider that the same fire that at one. distance 
produces in us the sensation of warmth, does at a 
nearer approach produce in us the far different sen- 
sation of pain, ought to bethink himself what reason 
he has to say that this idea of warmth, which was 
produced in him by the fire, is actually in the fire ; 
and his idea of pain, which the same fire produced 
in him the same way, is not in the fire. Why is 
whiteness and coldness in snow, and pain not, when 
it produces the one and the other idea in us; and 
can do neither, but by the bulk, figure, number, and 
motion of its solid parts? 

17. The particular bulk, number, figure, and mo- 
tion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them, 
whether any one's senses perceive them or not, and 
therefore they may be called real qualities, because 
they really exist in those bodies; but light, heat, 
whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them 
than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the 
sensation of them ; let not the eyes see light or 
colours, nor the ears hear sounds ; let the palate not 
taste, nor the nose smell ; and all colours, tastes, 
odours, and sounds, as they are such particular 
ideas, vanish and cease, and are reduced to their 
causes, i. e., bulk, figure, and motion of parts. 

B. The Idea of Substance. 

Locke's discussion of this point has been a bul- 
wark of opposition to materialism. It is included 
here because of its importance in the discussion : 



Materialism 289 

1. Ideas'^ of Substances, how made. — The mind 
being, as I have declared, furnished with a great 
number of the simple ideas conveyed in by the 
senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by 
reflection on its own operations, takes notice also 
that a certain number of these simple ideas go con- 
stantly together; which being presumed to belong 
to one thing, and words being suited to common ap- 
prehensions, and made use of for quick despatch, 
are called, so united in one subject, by one name; 
M''hich, by inadvertency, we are apt afterward to 
talk of and consider as one simple idea, which in- 
deed is a complication of many ideas together: be- 
cause, as I have said, not imagining how these simple 
ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom our- 
selves to suppose some substratum wherein they do 
subsist, and from which they do result ; which there- 
fore we call substance. 

2, Our Idea of Substance in general. — So that 
if any one will examine himself concerning his no- 
tion of pure substance in general, he will find he has 
no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of 
he knows not what support of such qualities which 
are capable of producing simple ideas in us ; which 
qualities are commonly called accidents. If any one 
should be asked, what is the subject wherein colour 
or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say, but 
the solid extended parts, and if he were demanded 
what is it that solidity and extension inhere in, he 
would not be in a much better case than the Indian 



Locke, Essay, Book II, chapter xxiii. 



290 Readings in Philosophy 

before mentioned, who, saying that the world was 
supported by a great elephant, was asked what the 
elephant rested on ; to which his answer was — a 
great tortoise. But being again pressed to know 
what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, re- 
plied, — something, he knew not what. And thus 
here, as in all other cases where we use words with- 
out having clear and distinct ideas, we talk like 
children ; who being questioned what such a thing 
is, which they know not, readily give this satisfac- 
tory answer, that it is something: which in truth 
signifies no more, when so used either by children 
or men, but that they know not what; and that the 
thing they pretend to know and talk of, is what they 
have no distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly 
ignorant of it, and in the dark. The idea then we 
have, to which we give the general name substance, 
being nothing but the supposed but unknown, sup- 
port of those qualities we find existing, which we 
imagine cannot subsist "sine re substante", without 
something to support them, we call that support 
substantia; which, according to the true import of 
the word, is, in plain English, standing under or 
upholding. 

3. Of the Sorts of Substances. — An obscure and 
relative idea of substance in general being thus 
made, we come to have the ideas of particular sorts 
of substances, by collecting such combinations of 
simple ideas as are, by experience and observation 
of men's senses, taken notice of to exist together, 
and are therefore supposed to flow from the par- 
ticular internal constitution, or unknown essence 
of that substance. Thus we come to have the ideas 



Materialism 291 

of a man, horse, gold, water, etc., of which sub- 
stances, whether any one has any other clear idea, 
farther than of certain simple ideas co-existing to- 
gether, I appeal to every one's own experience. It 
is the ordinary qualities observable in iron or a 
diamond, put together, that make the true complex 
idea of those substances, which a smith or a jeweller 
commonly knows better than a philosopher; who, 
whatever substantial forms he may talk of, has no 
other idea of those substances than what is framed 
by a collection of those simple ideas which are to be 
found in them; only we must take notice, that our 
complex ideas of substances, besides all these simple 
ideas they are made up of, have always the con- 
fused idea of something to which they belong, and 
in which they subsist. And therefore when we 
speak of any sort of substance, we say it is a thing 
having such or such qualities ; as body is a thing 
that is extended, figured, and capable of motion ; 
spirit, a thing capable of thinking; and so hard- 
ness, friability, and power to draw iron, we say, are 
qualities to be found in a loadstone. These, and the 
like fashions of speaking, intimate that the sub- 
stance is supposed always something besides the ex- 
tension, figure, solidity, motion, thinking, or other 
observable ideas, though we know not what it is. 

4. No clear idea of Substance in gerieral. — Hence, 
when we talk or think of any particular sort of cor- 
poreal substances, as horse, stone, etc., though the 
idea we have of either of them be but the complica- 
tion or collection of those -several simple ideas of 
sensible qualities, which we used to find united in 
the thing called horse or stone ; yet, because we can- 



292 Readings in Philosophy 

not conceive how they should subsist alone, nor one 
in another, we suppose them existing in and sup- 
ported by some common subject; which support we 
denote by the name substance, though it be certain 
we have no clear or distinct idea of that thing we 
suppose a support. 

C. The Interrelation of Brain and Mind. 

This has seemed to many thinkers one of the most 
forcible arguments of materialism. Buechner's 
work was very widely read during the latter part 
of the nineteenth century : 

That^ the brain — that soft organ which fills the 
interior of the cranium, and which, next to the 
liver, is of all the organs of the human body the 
densest and therefore comparatively the richest in 
blood-supply — is the organ of thought, volition and 
sensation, and that the latter cannot be conceived 
without the former, is a truth about which hardly 
any physician or physiologist can be in doubt. 
Science, daily experience, and a number of the 
most telling facts, of necessity force this upon their 
conviction. Therefore, in sketching the subjoined 
outline of facts, we are less actuated by the desire of 
imparting something new to them, than a desire to 
give some clearer notions of the subject to the gen- 
eral public, which often finds insoluble problems in 
the simplest and clearest truths of natural research. 
It is strange that in ttiis matter people have at all 



^ Buechner, L., Force and Matter, pages 209-216; fourth 
English edition, 1913; reprinted by permission of the Peter 
Eckler Co., New York. 



Materialism 293 

times stubbornly refused to acknowledge the irre- 
sistible power of facts ; but this is easily accounted 
for, and considerations of a certain amour-pr'opre 
and egotism are decidedly at the bottom of it. 

The brain is the seat and organ of thought; its 
size, its shape, its development, the manner or grade 
of its composition and formation, and the arrange- 
ment of its individual parts, stand in a definite rela- 
tion to the quality and quantity of the psychical and 
intellectual performances thereof. The important 
science of comparative, anatomy is here of the 
greatest value, showing, as it does, how, through 
the animal kingdom, from the lowest up to the high- 
est animal and to man himself, there exists a definite 
and gradually progressing proportion between the 
qualitative and quantitative condition of the brain. 
Man who, by virtue of his intellectual faculties, is 
admitted to be far above the collective animal world, 
has also — apart from a few exceptions which shall 
be more closely examined by and by — the largest 
brain, absolutely and relatively, among all living 
beings. Although the bulk of brain possessed by a 
few animals, known as the largest now in existence, 
such as the whale, the elephant and the large species 
of dolphins, surpasses the brain of man, this ap- 
parent exception really arises from the greater size 
of those parts which do not represent either intel- 
ligence or capacity for thought, but serve the 
nervous system of the body as centers of movement 
and sensation, as well as of unknown nervous action, 
and have necessarily a greater development of mass 
on account of the greater number and thickness of 
the nervous fibres in connection with them ; whilst 



294 Readings in Philosophy 

the parts of the brain concerned with the function 
of thought are in no animal equal in size, form, and 
relative composition to what they are in man. There- 
fore, quite another result follows when the relative 
weight of the brain, i. e., its weight in relation to 
that of the body, is taken into consideration. In 
this respect also man (with a few insignificant ex- 
ceptions) surpasses the whole animal world, and so 
much is this the case that, whilst in man the weight 
of the brain amounts to from one-fiftieth to one- 
thirty-fifth part of the weight of the body, in the 
dolphin it amounts only to the hundredth part, in 
the elephant to the five-hundredth, and in the whale 
to the three-thousandth part of the aggregate weight 
of their respective bodies. If this relative propor- 
tion is calculated upon the mass of the body, then 
(according to Leuret) the average weight of brain 
to each ten thousand parts of body-substance is : in 
fishes, 1:8; in reptiles, 7:6; in birds, 42:2; in mam- 
mals, 53 :8 ; in man, 277 :8. These figures sufficiently 
show the enormous gradual increase of the mass of 
brain in the vertebrate sub-kingdom, corresponding 
to the rise in the intellectual scale. Even among the 
articulata — whose highest divisions in perfection 
of organization and intellectual endowment are far 
above the lowest divisions of the vertebrata though 
the latter stand above them as a whole — the hees 
and ants, as also their nearest relations, whose ex- 
traordinary and almost miraculous intellectual 
capacity has becom.e proverbial, are distinguished 
by a brain highly developed in shape and composi- 
tion, and very large in proportion to the size of their 
bodies. 



Materialism 295 

However, the intellectual value of the brain, both 
among men and animals, must not be computed ex- 
clusively by its size, that is by its size as a whole, 
which is a very imperfect standard of its intellectual 
capacity, but also and very much more so by the 
proportions of its shape and composition. ''Not the 
quantity only, but also the quality of the nervous 
tissues," says Valentin (Textbook of Physiology) 
"and the consequent amount of energy, and of the 
reciprocal action of the individual elements, forms 
the measure of the proportionate value of intel- 
lectual activity." 

In this respect also comparative anatomy and 
physiology have shown that man stands higher than 
all other creatures; for instance, in man the hemi- 
spheres of the cerebrum, the external layer of which 
— the gray matter — is to be regarded as the pecu- 
liar seat of intellectual activity, are far more highly 
developed than in any other animal in comparison 
with the cerebellum. When the brain is looked at 
from above, they completely cover the cerebellum, 
while this is not the case with the brain of any brute. 
Closely connected with this development of the cere- 
bral hemispheres is the greater development of the 
famous convolutions of the brain, which cover the 
external surface, disposed in a regular system of 
winding, interceding furrows, and which have no 
other use than that of giving the greatest possible 
extension and anatomical complexity of arrange- 
ment to the gray matter of the brain ; this substance 
covering the M^hole surface to the depth of several 
lines, and the fundamental elements of the nervous 
system, fibres and cells (ganglionic or nervous cen- 



296 Readings in Philosophy 

tres), being- so arranged in it as to afford the 
greatest possible number of material points of con- 
tact between them. This is all the more necessary 
since it is the function of the fibres to convey to the 
brain impressions from without and from the body 
itself, while the ganglionic or nerve cells, having 
received these impressions, work upon them, and 
with the aid of the efferent and the intercommuni- 
cating fibres transmute them into reflective or voli- 
tional impulses. The fibrous tissue of the brain is 
dead white in color, whilst, wherever nerve-cells or 
ganglionic masses are found with them, the brain 
substance is of gray-rose color, partly because of 
the cells and partly from its greater vascularity; 
hence the distinction between the gray and the ivhite 
matter of the brain. This gray matter has also been 
termed the hraln-ynantle, partly because it covers 
the brain like a mantle, and partly because of its 
peculiar disposition in folds. This arrangement in- 
creases the mass or extension of the gray matter, 
which covers all the folds of the windings to the 
before-mentioned depth, thus obtaining more than 
tivelve times the superficial extent, without increas- 
ing the size of the head or the arch of the skull to 
an unnatural or excessive proportion. 

This brain-mantle, as we have said, is without any 
doubt whatever the portion of the brain to which 
are entrusted the higher mental or intellectual func- 
tions, such as thought, imagination, consciousness, 
sensation and volition; while the underlying white 
or fibrous tissue only serves as an organ of conduc- 
tion, and the islands of gray matter in the interior 
of the cerebrum serve as centres for the nervous 



Materialism 297 

action of the brain, in its capacity of superintendent 
of the v/hole nervous system. 

If the human brain, as shown in the foregoing, 
surpasses all animal brains in absolute or relative 
development of mass, except in the few above-men- 
tioned instances, it is still more above them in the 
internal arrangement of its individual parts, espe- 
cially in the development and arrangement of the 
gray substance and of the convolutions, which in 
extent, depth, number, multiformity and asym- 
metry or irregularity of disposition are approached 
by no animal brain ; perhaps a few exceptions to 
this should be made in favor of the brain of the large 
anthropoid apes, though these again labor under 
other and important defects. The lower we descend 
in the animal scale, the more rapidly do the num- 
bers of convolutions decrease. Thus, the brain- 
surface of fishes and amphibians is quite, and that 
of birds almost smooth and without convolutions. 
The lowest orders of mammalia have also smooth 
brains, or show but the merest trace of convolutions ; 
and it is only in apes, elephants, dolphins, dogs, 
carnivora and ruminants that they obtain a larger 
development. On the other hand, the brain of bees 
and ants is very rich in convolutions. 

The same differences that exist between human 
and animal brains are also to be noticed in compar- 
ing individual human brains with each other, both 
in regard to the convolutions and the increase of 
surface obtained thereby; it is easy to prove by 
countless examples that intellectual endowment or 
capacity for achievement is like a mathematical 
function of the development of the convolutions 



298 Readings in Philosophy 

and of the gray matter of the brain. This is true 
not only of individual races and nations, but equally 
of individual specimens of mankind. The subject 
has been treated in a remarkable work by that pains- 
taking scientist, Dr. Hermann Wagner, from which 
it clearly appears that the superficial extent of the 
brain increases luith the intellectual poiver. Thus, 
Wagner found the aggregate area of the brain of 
an orang-outang he measured, to amount only to a 
fourth of that of the average human brain, while 
in the case of a manual laborer the surface of the 
brain was some fifty square inches less than in the 
case of two scientists. The convolutions of the brain 
of Beethoven, the great musician, were, according 
to Dr. J. Wagner's report, "twice as deep and nu- 
merous as usual." On the other hand, Longet shows 
that in the brains of idiots, or creatures who are 
born imbeciles the convolutions are less deep and 
the gray matter is less thick than in normal brains. 
A child, also, despite the large size of his brain in 
comparison with that of his body, has but verj^ im- 
perfect convolutions, and only develops these after 
attaining a certain age. Prior to the ninth month of 
pregnancy the convolutions are not even visible; 
until then the human foetus has a smooth brain, like 
that of the lower vertebrates. 

We should, however, fall into a serious error if 
we rated the intellectual value of a brain only by 
the conditions above-mentioned, by its size and the 
number of its convolutions ; much more depends on 
the details of its internal structure and its chemical 
composition, so that if an individual brain be defi- 
cient in one direction, the defect may be compen- 



Materialism 299 

sated by advantages in other directions. Especially 
does it appear averred from the unanimous state- 
ments of brain-anatomists, that the physical density 
or firmness of the mass of the brain is beyond doubt 
of very great importance, so that the brain of an 
intelligent and clever person is denser and firmer 
than that of a stupid and weak-minded one. So 
also is the brain of higher races, which have ad- 
vanced in culture, proportionately more dense, firm 
and compact than that of lower or savage ones. It 
is well known that the brain of the child in com- 
parison to that of the adult is remarkable for its 
softness and want of density, owing to the greater 
percentage of Avater it contains. The microscopic 
peculiarities of the brain, the commencement of very 
indistinct fibres, the difference between gray and 
white matter, the large blood-supply, the furrows, 
etc., only become recognizable in the course of time 
and in proportion as the intellectual power increases. 
Conversely, as the brain grows older and the in- 
tellectual power declines, the gray substance ab- 
sorbs more water and the brain returns to a con- 
dition similar to that of childhood. In doing so, 
the brain of old people subsides as a rule into a 
state of atrophy and shriveling up ; gaps are formed 
between the convolutions which formerly were close 
together, and these gaps become filled with water; 
the substance of the brain itself becomes more 
tenacious, the color deeper gray, the blood-supply 
less, and the convolutions become smaller. The 
weight of the brain, having rapidly increased up 
to the twenty-fifth year of life, and having reached 
its maximum volume between the age of forty and 



300 Readings in Philosophy 

fifty, now begins to fall off. Everybody knows that 
in keeping with what we have said, reason comes 
with years, and also departs with years. 

"The greatest thinker of his age," says Tuttle, 
"may in one hour's illness lose all his intelligence; 
in advanced age he enters a second childhood, as 
helpless and simple as the first. With the decay 
of the body decays also the reason, and with the 
last breath it expires, the same as a lamp does with- 
out oil, flickering feebly." This is exactly the re- 
verse of what would happen if, as so many think, 
the spirit were a thing independent of the body, and 
the spiritual powers increased in proportion as the 
body drew nearer to its dissolution. 

From what has already been said it may readily 
be inferred that the proportionate thickness of the 
gray matter is of the highest importance in con- 
nection with intellectual capacity, and this thickness 
varies very much among animals and men. Thus, 
Dr. J. Jessen perceived to his great surprise that 
the brain of a female idiot, called Nasmer, twenty- 
three years old, showed numerous well-developed 
convolutions on the surface, but he soon found the 
solution of the difficulty when, on dissecting the 
brain, he saw that the gray matter had become 
atrophied, apparently from disease contracted in 
early childhood, and consequently had become very- 
thin and narrow. Jessen's researches also prove 
that a deficiency of superficial development of gray 
matter, brought about by the smallness of the 
cranium, may be made up for by a greater develop- 
ment in thickness. This in itself explains — apart 
from many other compensating agencies — how it 



Materialism ^01 

is that a comparatively small brain may exceed in 
mental power a comparatively larger one, just as a 
small nose may exceed a large one in olfactory 
power. This also seems to explain, at least partially, 
the capacity for intellectual performances of some 
animals, such as dogs and others, which are pos- 
sessed of comparatively small and otherwise less 
perfectly developed brains. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF KANT 

A. The Problem of the Critique of Pure 
Reason 

This^ may well be called the age of criticism,, a 
criticism from which nothing need hope to escape. 
When religion seeks to shelter itself behind its 
sanctity, and law behind its majesty, they justly 
awaken suspicion against themselves, and lose all 
claim to the sincere respect which reason yields only 
to that which has been able to bear the test of its 
free and open scrutiny. 

Metaphysic has been the battlefield of endless 
conflicts. Dogmatism at first held despotic sway; 
but . . . from time to time scepticism destroyed 
all settled order of society; . . . and now a 
widespread indifferentism prevails. Never has 
metaphysic been so fortunate as to strike into the 
sure path of science, but has kept groping about, 
and groping, too, among mere ideas. What can 
be the reason of this failure ? Is a science of meta- 
physic impossible? Then, why should nature dis- 
quiet us with a restless longing after it, as if it 
were one of our most important concerns? Nay 



'- The Philosophy of Kant, as Contained in Extracts from 
his own Writings, selected and translated by John Watson, 
pages 1-7; Maclehose, Jackson and Co., 1919; reprinted by 
permission of the publishers. 

(302) 



The Philosophy of Kant 303 

more, how can we put any faith in human reason, 
if in one of the very things that we most desire to 
know, it not merely forsakes us, but lures us on by 
false hopes only to cheat us in the end? Or are there 
any indications that the true path has hitherto been 
missed, and that by starting afresh we may yet suc- 
ceed where others have failed? 

It seems to me that the intellectual revolution, by 
which at a bound mathematics and physics became 
what they now are, is so remarkable, that we are 
called upon to ask what was the essential feature 
of the change that proved so advantageous to them, 
and to try at least to apply to metaphysic as far as 
possible a method that has been successful in other 
sciences of reason. In mathematics I believe that, 
after a long period of groping, the true path was 
disclosed in the happy inspiration of a single man. 
If that man was Thales, things must suddenly have 
appeared to him in a new light, the moment he saw 
how the properties of the isosceles triangle could 
be demonstrated. The true method, as he found, 
was not to inspect the visible figure of the triangle, 
or to analyze the bare conception of it, and from 
this, as it were, to read off its properties, but to 
bring out what was necessarily implied in the con- 
ception that he had himself formed a priori, and 
put into the figure, in the construction by which he 
presented it to himself. 

Physics took a much longer time than mathe- 
matics to enter on the highway of science, but here, 
too, a sudden revolution in the way of looking at 
things took place. When Galileo caused balls which 
he had carefully weighed to roll down an inclined 



304 Readings in Philosophy 

plane, or Torricelli made the air bear up a weight 
which he knew beforehand to be equal to a standard 
column of water, a new light broke on the mind 
of the scientific discoverer. It was seen that reason 
has insight only into that which it produces after a 
plan of its own, and that it must itself lead the way 
with principles of judgment based upon fixed laws, 
and force nature to answer its questions. Even ex- 
perimental physics, therefore, owes the beneficial 
revolution in its point of view entirely to the idea, 
that, while reason can know nothing purely of itself, 
yet that which it has itself put into nature must be 
its guide to the discovery of all that it can learn 
from nature. 

In metaphysical speculations it has always been 
assumed that all our knowledge must conform to ob- 
jects; but every attempt from this point of view 
to extend our knowledge of objects a priori by 
means of conceptions has ended in failure. The 
time has now come to ask, whether better progress 
may not be made by supposing that objects must 
conform to our knowlege. Plainly this would better 
agree with the avowed aim of metaphysic, to de- 
termine the nature of objects a priori, or before 
they are actually presented. Our suggestion is simi- 
lar to that of Copernicus in astronomy, who, find- 
ing it impossible to explain the movements of the 
heavenly bodies on the supposition that they turned 
round the spectator, tried whether he might not 
succeed better by supposing the spectator to revolve 
and the stars to remain at rest. Let us make a 
similar experiment in metaphysic with perception. 
If it were really necessary for our perception to 



The Philosophy of Kant 305 

conform to the nature of objects, I do not see how 
we could know anything of it d ■priori; but if the 
sensible object must conform to the constitution of 
our faculty of perception, I see no difficulty in the 
matter. Perception, however, can become knowl- 
edge only if it is related in some way to the object 
which it determines. Now here again I may sup- 
pose, either that the conceptions through which I 
effect that determination conform to the objects, or 
that the objects, in other words the experience in 
which alone the objects are known, conform to con- 
ceptions. In the former case, I fall into the same 
perplexity as before, and fail to explain how such 
conceptions can be known a priori. In the latter 
case, the outlook is more hopeful. For, experience 
is itself a mode of knowledge which implies intel- 
ligence, and intelligence has a rule of its own, which 
must be an a priori condition of all knowledge of 
objects presented to it. To this rule, as expressed 
in a pi'iori conceptions, all objects of experience 
must necessarily conform, and with it they must 
agree. 

Our experiment succeeds as well as we could wish, 
and gives promise that metaphysic may enter upon 
the sure course of a science, at least in its first part, 
where it is occupied with those a priori conceptions 
to which the corresponding objects can be given. 
The new point of view enables us to explain how 
there can be a priori knowledge, and what is more, 
to furnish satisfactory proofs of the laws that lie 
at the basis of nature as a totality of objects of ex- 
perience. But the consequences that flow from this 



306 Readings in Philosophy 

deduction of our faculty of a priori knowledge, 
which constitutes the first part of our inquiry, are 
unexpected, and at first sight seem to be fatal to the 
aims of metaphysic, with which we have to deal in 
the second part of it. For we are brought to the 
conclusion that we never can transcend the limits 
of possible experience, and therefore never can 
realize the object with which metaphysic is pri- 
marily concerned. In truth, however, no better in- 
direct proof could be given that we were correct in 
holding, as the result of our first estimate of the a 
priori knowledge of reason, that such knowledge 
relates not at all to the thing as it exists in itself, but 
only to phenomena. For that which necessarily 
forces us to go beyond the limits of experience and 
of all phenomena is the unconditioned, which reason 
demands of things in themselves, and by right and 
necessity seeks in the complete series of conditions 
for everything conditioned. If, then, we find that 
we cannot think the unconditioned without contra- 
diction, on the supposition of our experience con- 
forming to objects as things in themselves ; while, 
on the contrary, the contradiction disappears, on the 
supposition that our knowledge does not conform to 
things in themselves, but that objects as they are 
given to us as phenomena conform to our knowl- 
edge; we are entitled to conclude that what we at 
first assumed as an hypothesis is now established as 
a truth. 

It may seem from this that the result of our criti- 
cal investigation is purely negative, and merely 
warns us not to venture with speculative reason be- 
yond the limits of experience. And no doubt this 



The Philosophy of Kant 307 

is its first use; but a positive result is obtained when 
it is seen that the principles with which speculative 
reason ventures beyond its proper limits, in reality 
do not extend the province of reason, but inevitably 
narroiv it. For in seeking to go altogether beyond 
its true limits, the limits of sensibility, those prin- 
ciples threaten to supplant pure reason in its prac- 
tical aspect. Let us suppose that the necessary 
distinction which our criticism shows to exist be- 
tween things as objects of experience and the same 
things as they are in themselves, had not been made. 
Then the principle of causality, and with it the 
mechanical conception of nature as determined by it, 
would apply to all things in general as efficient 
causes. Hence I could not, without palpable con- 
tradiction, say of the same being, for instance the 
human soul, that its will is free, and yet is subject 
to the necessity of nature, that is, is not free. But, 
if our criticism is sound and the object may be taken 
in two distinct senses, on the one hand as a phenom- 
enon, and on the other hand as a thing in itself; 
there is no contradiction in supposing that the very 
same will, in its visible acts as a phenomenon, is 
not free, but necessarily subject to the law of na- 
ture, while yet, as belonging to a thing in itself, it 
is not subject to that law, but is free. Now, morality 
requires us only to be able to think freedom without 
self-contradiction, not to understand it; it is enough 
that our conception of the act as free puts no ob- 
stacle in the way of the conception of it as mechani- 
cally necessary, for the act stands in quite a dif- 
ferent relation to freedom from that in which it 
stands to the mechanism of nature. From the criti- 



308 Readings in Philosophy 

cal point of view, therefore, the doctrine of morality 
and the doctrine of nature may each be true in its 
own sphere; which could never have been shown 
had not criticism previously established our un- 
avoidable ignorance of things in themselves, and 
limited all that we can know to mere phenomena. 
I have, therefore, found it necessary to deny knoivl- 
edge of God, freedom, and immortality, in order to 
find a place for faith. 

It is dogmatism, or the preconception that prog- 
ress in metaphysic may be made without a previous 
criticism of pure reason, that is responsible for that 
dogmatic unbelief v\^hich is so hostile to morality. 
The first and most important task of philosophy is 
to deprive metaphysic once for all of its pernicious 
influence by closing up the sources of its errors. 
Our critique is not opposed to the dogmatic proce- 
dure of reason as a science of pure knowledge, which 
must be strictly proved a vriori from well-founded 
principles, but only to dogmatism, that is, to the 
presumption that we may follow the time-honoured 
method of constructing a system of pure metaphysic 
out of principles that rest upon mere conceptions, 
without first asking in what way reason has come 
into possession of them, and by what right it em- 
ploys them. Dogmatism, in a word, is the dogmatic 
procedure of reason ivithout any previous criticism 
of its oivn poiaers. 

The critique of pure reason is not a criticism of 
books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in 
general, in so far as reason seeks for knowledge that 
is independent of all experience. I have evaded 
none of its questions, on the plea of the imbecility 



The Philosophy of Kant 309 

of human reason. In fact, reason is so perfect a 
unity that, if it were in principle inadequate to the 
solution of even a sing'le one of the questions which 
by its very nature it raises, we might at once with 
perfect certainty set it aside as incapable of an- 
swering any of the others. For as it is a true or- 
ganic unity, in which the whole exists for the sake' 
of each of the parts, and each part for the sake of 
the whole, the slightest imperfection, whether it is 
due to a flaw or to a defect, will inevitably betray 
itself in use. 

B. The Result of the Transcendental Ana- 
lytic. 

We^ have seen that, whatever understanding pro- 
duces from itself, it holds in trust solely in the in- 
terest of experience. The principles of piire under- 
standing, whether as mathematical they are a priori 
constitutive principles, or as dynamical merely regu- 
lative principles, contain nothing but what may be 
called the pure schema for a possible experience. 
For experience derives its unity entirely from the 
synthetic unity which understanding imparts, origi- 
nally and spontaneously, to the synthesis of imagi- 
nation in relation to apperception ; and phenomena, 
as the data for a possible knowledge, must therefore 
stand a priori in relation to that synthetic unity and 
in harmony with it. 

Now the proposition that understanding can never 
make a transcendental use, but only an empirical 
use, of any of its a priori principles, is seen to have 



"^Ibid., pages 129-134. 
21 



310 Readings in Philosophy 

• 

very important consequences, so soon as it is thor- 
oughly understood. A conception is employed 
transcendentally when it occurs in a proposition 
regarding things as such or in themselves; it is 
employed empirically when the proposition relates 
merely to phenomena, or objects of a possible expe- 
rience. Only the empirical use is admissible. 
Every conception requires, firstly, the logical form of 
conception or thought, and, secondly, the possibility 
of an object being empirically given to which it maj'- 
be applied. Where no such object can be given, the 
conception is empty and meaningless, containing 
nothing but the logical function which is necessary 
in order to form a conception out of any data that 
may be given. Now, the only way in which an 
object can be presented is in perception. And this 
perception must be empirical; for, although pure 
perception is possible a prio7'i before the presenta- 
tion of an object, yet, as it is a mere form, it can 
by itself have no object to which it may apply, and 
therefore it can have no objective value ascribed to 
it. Hence all conceptions, and with them all prin- 
ciples, even when they are possible a priori, are none 
the less relative to empirical perceptions as the data 
for a possible experience. Apart from this relation 
they have no objective validity, but are a mere play 
of imagination or of understanding. 

That this limitation applies to all the categories, 
and to all the principles derived from them, is evi- 
dent, if only from this, that we cannot give a real 
definition of even a single one of them, or in other 
words, make the possibility of their object intel- 
ligible, without directly referring to the conditions 



The Philosophy of Kant 311 

of sensibility, and therefore to the form of phenom- 
ena. The categories are thus necessarily limited to 
phenomena as their sole object, and, if this limita- 
tion is taken away, all meaning or objective relation 
vanishes from them, and no possible instance of 
an object can be adduced to make the conception 
comprehensible. 

There is therefore no way of avoiding the conclu- 
sion that the pure conceptions of understanding can 
never be employed transcendentally, but only em- 
pirically, and that the principles of pure under- 
standing can apply only to objects of sense, as con- 
forming to the universal conditions of a possible 
experience, and never to things as such, or apart 
from the manner in which we are capable of per- 
ceiving them. 

The Transcendental Analytic has brought us to 
this important conclusion, that understanding can 
never do more than supply by anticipation the form 
for a possible experience; and, as nothing but a 
phenomenon can be an object of experience, it has 
taught us that understanding cannot possibly trans- 
cend the limits of sensibility, beyond which no ob- 
jects are presented to us. The principles of pure 
understanding are merely exponents of phenomena, 
and for the proud name of Ontology, as a science 
that claims to supply in a systematic doctrine a 
priori synthetic knowledge of things as such, must 
be substituted the more modest claims of an Analy- 
tic of Pure Understanding. 

If from empirical knowledge is taken away all 
that thought contributes in its categories, there is no 
longer any knowledge of an object. By mere per- 



312 Readings in Philosophy 

ception nothing whatever is thought, and the mere 
fact that I am conscious of an affection of my sensi- 
bility does not entitle me to say that I am conscious 
of my affection as related to any. object. On the 
other hand, even if all perception is taken away, 
there still remains the form of thought, or the man- 
ner in which the various elements of a possible per- 
ception are capable of being combined in relation 
to an object. The categories have therefore in this 
sense a wider reach than perceptions of sense, that 
they think objects in general, without looking to the 
particular manner in which they may be presented. 
But although they are so far independent of sensi- 
bility, they do not determine a larger sphere of ob- 
jects; for we are not entitled to say that non-sensu- 
ous objects can be presented, unless we can show 
that a sort of perception is possible that is not sensu- 
ous. Now this we cannot possibly do. 

A conception which cannot be known in any way 
to have objective reality may be called problematic, 
if it is not self-contradictory, and if it is bound up 
with the knowledge gained through certain concep- 
tions the range of which it serves to limit. Now 
the conception of a nounienon, that is, of a thing 
that cannot be an object of sense, but is thought, 
by pure understanding alone, as a thing in itself, is 
certainly not self-contradictory ; for we cannot know 
with certainty that sensibility is the only possible 
mode of perception. Moreover, the conception of a 
noumenon is necessary to prevent sensuous percep- 
tion from claiming to extend to things in themselves, 
and to set a limit to the objective validity of sensuous 
knowledge. In the end, however, we are unable to 



The Philosophy of Kant 313 

understand how such noumena are possible at all, 
and the realm beyond the sphere of phenomena is 
for us empty. We have indeed an understanding 
that problematically stretches beyond the sphere of 
phenomena, but we have no perception in which ob- 
jects beyond the field of sensibility can be presented, 
nor can we conceive how such a perception is even 
possible. Hence understanding cannot be employed 
a^sertorically beyond the world of phenomena. The 
conception of a noumenon is, therefore, merely the 
conception of a limit, a conception which is only of 
negative use, and but serves to check the presump- 
tion of sensibility. But although it is unable to 
establish anything positive beyond the sphere of 
phenomena, the idea of a noumenon is not a mere 
arbitrary fiction, but is connected in the closest way 
with the limitation of the sensibility to phenomena. 
The positive division of objects into phenomena 
and noumena, and of the world into a sensible and 
intelligible world, is therefore quite inadmissible. 
Certainly, the distinction of conceptions as sensuous 
and intellectual is legitimate. But, as intellectual 
conceptions do not determine any object for them- 
selves, they can have no objective validity. If ab- 
straction is made from sense, how shall it be made 
intelligible, that the categories, which are then the 
only means of determining noumena, have any mean- 
ing whatever? The mere unity of thought is not 
the same thing as the determination of an object; 
for knowledge also requires that the object to which 
that unity can be applied, should be capable of being 
presented in a perception. At the same time, if the 
conception of a noumenon is interpreted in a prob- 



314 Readings in Philosophy 

lematic sense, it is not only admissible but indis- 
pensable, serving as it does to define the limits of 
sensibility. In that sense, however, a noumenon is 
not a special kind of object for our understanding, 
namely, an intelligible object; on the contrary it is 
problematic whether there is any understanding 
that could have such an object actually before it. 
Such an understahding would not know its object 
discursively by means of categories, but intuitively 
in a non-sensuous perception; and how this is pos- 
sible we cannot form even the faintest conception. 
Still, in the conception of a noumenon our under- 
standing gets a sort of negative extension; for in 
calling things in themselves noumena, and viewing 
them as not objects of sense it rather limits the 
sensibility than is limited by sensibility. At the 
same time, understanding cannot limit sensibility 
withotit also setting limits to itself, for it has in- 
stantly to add, that things in themselves cannot be 
known by means of categories, and all that remains 
is to think them under a name that indicates some- 
thing unknown. 

There are, therefore, no principles through which 
the conception of pure, merely intelligible objects 
could ever be applied, for we cannot imagine any 
way in which such objects could be presented to us. 
The problematic thought, which leaves a place open 
for intelligible objects, serves only, as a sort of 
empty space, to limit the empirical principles, with- 
out containing within it or indicating any object of 
knowledge that lies outside the sphere of those 
principles. 



The Philosophy of Kant 315 

C. The Postulates of Practical Reason. 
8, Theorem 4. 

Autonomy of will is the sole principle of all moral 
laws, and of the duties which are in conformity with 
them. Heteronomy of will, on the other hand, not 
only supplies no basis for obligation, but it is con- 
tradictory of the principle of obligation and of the 
morality of the will. The single principle of moral- 
ity thus consists in independence of all matter of 
the law, that is, of every object of desire, and in the 
determination of the will through the mere universal 
form of law, of which a maxim must be capable. 
This independence of all matter is freedom in the 
negative sense, just as the self-legislation of pure 
practical reason is freedom in the positive sense. 
Hence the moral law simply expresses the autonomy 
of pure practical reason, that is, of freedom. Auton- 
omy is therefore the formal condition of all 
maxims, and apart from this condition there can be 
no harmony of the will with the supreme practical 
law. If the matter of volition, which is just the 
object of desire as connected with the law, should 
enter into the practical law as the condition of its 
possibility, there will be a heteronomy of the will; 
for the will must then follow -some natural impulse 
or desire, and must therefore be dependent upon 
the law of nature. Plainly the will in that case 
does not give law to itself, but merely prescribes 
the rational course to be taken in following certain 
pathological laws. Our maxims cannot contain in 



^ Ibid., pages 270-1. 



316 Readings in Philosophy 

themselves the form of universal law, and therefore 
they not only cannot be the basis of obligation, but 
they contradict the principle of a pure practical 
reason. Even, therefore, if the action which pro- 
ceeds from them should be in harmony with moral 
law, they are opposed to a truly moral disposition. 

The Immortality of the Soul 

The^ object of a will that is capable of being deter- 
mined by the moral law, is the production in the 
world of the highest good. Now, the supreme con- 
dition of the highest good is the perfect harmony of 
the disposition with the moral law. Such a har- 
mony must be possible, not less than the object of 
the will, for it is implied in the command to promote 
that object. Perfect harmony of the will with the 
moral law is holiness, a perfection of which no ra- 
tional being existing in the. world of sense is capable 
at any moment of his life. Yet holiness is demanded 
as practically necessary, and it can be found only in 
an infinite progress towards perfect harmony with 
the moral law. Pure practical reason therefore 
forces us to assume such a practical progress to- 
wards perfection as the real object of our will. 

Now, this infinite progress is possible only if we 
presuppose that the existence of a rational being is 
prolonged to infinity, and that he retains his per- 
sonality for all time. This is what we mean by the 
immortality of the soul. The highest good is there- 
fore practically possible, only if we presuppose the 
immortality of the soul. Thus immortality is in- 



Ibid., pages 294-300. 



The Philosophy of Kant 317 

separably bound up with the moral law. It is a 
postulate of pure practical reason, that is, a propo- 
sition that cannot be proved theoretically, but de- 
pends upon an a priori practical law of uncondi- 
tioned validity. 

A finite rational being is capable only of an in- 
finite progress from lower to higher stages of moral 
perfection. The Infinite Being, who is free from 
the limits of time, sees in this series, which for us 
has no end, a whole that is in harmony with the 
moral law. Holiness He demands inexorably as a 
duty in order to assign to ever^^one his exact share 
in the highest good; and this holiness lies completely 
before Him in a single intellectual perception of 
rational beings. Created beings can hope to share 
in the highest good only in so far as they are con- 
scious of having stood the test of the moral law. If 
in the past they have advanced from lower to higher 
degrees of morality, and have thus proved the 
strength of their resolution, they may hope to make 
unbroken progress in the future as long as they live 
here, and even beyond the present life. They can 
never hope in this life, or, indeed, at any imaginable 
point of time in the future life, to be in perfect 
harmony with the will of God, but they may hope 
for this harmony in the infinite duration of their 
existence as it is surveyed by God alone. 

The Existence of God 

The moral law leads us to postulate not only the 
immortality of the soul, but the existence of God. 
For it shows us how happiness in proportion to 



318 Readings in Philosophy 

morality, which is the second element of the high- 
est good, is possible, and to postulate it for reasons 
as perfectly disinterested as in the former case. 
This second postulate of the existence of God rests 
upon the necessity of presupposing the existence of 
a cause adequate to the effect which has to be ex- 
plained. 

Happiness is the state of a rational being existing 
in the world who experiences through the whole of 
his life whatever he desires and wills. It, therefore, 
presupposes that nature is in harmony with his 
whole end, as well as with the essential principles 
by which his will is determined. Now, the moral 
law, being a law of free beings, commands us to act 
from motives that are entirely independent of na- 
ture and of the harmony of nature with our desires. 
But a rational agent in the world is not the cause of 
the world and of nature itself. There is no reason 
whatever, in the case of a being who is a part of 
the world and is dependent upon it, why the moral 
law should imply a necessary connection between 
happiness and morality proportionate to happiness. 
For the will of such a being is not the cause of na- 
ture, and therefore he has no power to bring nature 
into complete harmony with his principles of action. 
At the same time, in the practical problem of pure 
reason, that is, in the necessary pursuit of the high- 
est good, such a connection is postulated as neces- 
sary. He ought to seek to promote the highest 
good, and therefore the highest good must be pos- 
sible. He must therefore postulate the existence of 
a cause of nature as a whole, which is distinct from 
nature, and which is able to connect happiness and 



The Pkiloso'phy of Kant 319 

morality in exact harmony with each other. Now, 
this supreme cause must be the ground of the har- 
mony of nature, not simply with a law of the will 
of a rational being, but also with the consciousness 
of this law insofar as it is made the supreme prin- 
ciple of the agent's will. That cause must therefore 
be in harmony not merely with the form of morality, 
but with morality as willed by a rational being, that 
is, with his moral character. The highest good is 
thus capable of being realized in the world, only if 
there exists a supreme cause of nature whose caus- 
ality is in harmony with the moral character of the 
agent. Now, a being that is capable of acting from 
the consciousness of law is a rational being, an in- 
telligence, and the causality of that being, proceed- 
ing as it does from the consciousness of law, is a 
will. There is therefore implied, in the idea of the 
highest good, a being who is the supreme cause of 
nature, and who is the cause or author of nature 
through his intelligence and will, that is, God. If, 
therefore, we are entitled to postulate the highest 
derivative good, or the best world, we must also 
postulate the actual existence of the highest original 
good, that is, the existence of God. Now, it is our 
duty to promote the highest good, and hence it is not 
only allowable, but it is necessarily bound up with 
the very idea of duty, that we should presuppose the 
possibility of this highest good. And as this pos- 
sibility can be established only under condition that 
God exists, the presupposition of the highest good 
is inseparably connected with duty, or, in other 
words, it is morally necessary to hold the existence 
of God. 



320 Readings in Philosophy 

The Postulates of Pure Py'actical Reason 

The postulates of pure practical reason are not 
theoretical dogmas, but presuppositions which are 
practically necessary. They do not enlarge our 
speculative knowledge, but give objective reality to 
the ideas of speculative reason in general, and jus- 
tify it in the use of conceptions which it could not 
otherwise venture to regard as even possible. 

These postulates are immortality, freedom, (in the 
positive sense, as the causality of a being who be- 
longs to the intelligible world), and the existence of 
God. The first rests upon the practically necessary 
condition, that existence should continue long 
enough to permit of the complete realization of the 
moral law. The secofid arises from the necessary 
presupposition of man's independence of the world 
of sense, and his capability of determining his will 
in conformity with the law of an intelligible world, 
that is, the law of freedom. The third depends upon 
the necessity of presupposing a supreme, self-ex- 
istent good, that is, the existence of God, as the 
condition under which the highest good may be 
realized in such an intelligible world. 

Our reverence for the moral law necessarily com- 
pels us to seek for the realization of the highest 
good, and hence the reality of the highest good must 
be presupposed. By means of the postulates of 
practical reason, we are brought to conceptions, 
which speculative reason no doubt set up as prob- 
lems to be solved, but which it was itself unable to 
solve. The first conception is that of immortality. 
This conception involved speculative reason in para- 



The Philosophy of Kant 321 

logisnis; for it could find no trace of the permanence 
required for the conversion of the psychological con- 
ception of an ultimate subject into the real con- 
sciousness of a substance. Practical reason sup- 
plies what is required, by the postulate of a dura- 
tion adequate to the complete realization of the 
moral law in the highest good. It leads, secondly, 
to the cosmological idea of an intelligible world and 
the consciousness of our existence in that world. 
This idea involved speculative reason in an an- 
tinomy, for the solution of which it had to fall back 
upon a problematic conception, the objective reality 
of which it could not prove. But practical reason, 
by means of the postulate of freedom, shows that 
idea to have objective reality. Lastly, practical 
reason brings us to the conception of a Supreme 
Being. This conception speculative reason was able 
to think, but it could not show it to be more than a 
transcendental ideal. Practical reason, on the other 
hand, gives meaning to this idea, by showing that 
a Supreme Being is the supreme principle of the 
highest good in an intelligible world, and is endowed 
with the sovereign power of prescribing moral laws 
in that world. 

Is our knowledge, then, actually enlarged by prac- 
tical reason? Is that which for speculative reason 
is transcendent for practical reason iTnmanent? 
Undoubtedly it is, but only in relation to action. 
Practical reason cannot give us a theoretical knowl- 
edge of our own soul, of the intelligible world, or of 
a Supreme Being, as these are in themselves. All 
that it can do is to unite the conception of them in 



322 Readings in Philosophy 

the practical conception of the highest good, which 
is the object of our will, and to unite them entirely 
a priori through pure reason. This union is effected 
only: through the medium of the moral law, and 
merely in relation to that which it commands with 
a view to the highest good. For we cannot under- 
stand how freedom is possible, or how a free cause 
would appear to us if it were theoretically and posi- 
tively known ; all that we can say is, that a free 
cause is postulated by the moral law and for the 
sake of the moral law. The same remark applies 
to the other ideas. No human intelligence can ever 
understand how immortality and the existence of 
God are possible; but, on the other hand, no soph- 
istry will ever destroy the faith of even the most un- 
reflective man in their reality. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SPIRITUALISM OR IDEALISM 

A. The Existence of the Material World. 

Berkeley's reasons for questioning the independ- 
ent existence of matter are summed up in the work 
from which the following selection is taken : 

1. It^ is evident to any one who takes a survey 
of the objects of human knoivledge, that they are 
either ideas actually imprinted on the senses ; or else 
such as are perceived by attending to the passions 
and operations of the mind ; or lastly, ideas formed 
by help of memory and imagination — either com- 
pounding, dividing, or barely representing those 
originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By 
sight I have the ideas of light and colours, with 
their several degrees and variations. By touch I 
perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and 
resistance, and of all these more and less either as 
to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with 
odours ; the palate with tastes ; and hearing conveys 
sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and 
composition. And as several of these are observed 
to accompany each other, they come to be marked 
by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. 
Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, 
figure and consistence having being observed to go 



^ Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, 2d edition, 
1734. 

(323) 



324 Readings in Philosophy 

together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified 
by the name apple; other collections of ideas consti- 
tute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible 
things; which as they are pleasing or disagreeable 
excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and 
so forth. 

2. But, besides all that endless variety of ideas 
or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something 
which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers 
operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, 
about them. This perceiving, active being is what 
I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words 
I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing 
entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, 
which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived 
— for the existence of an idea consists in being per- 
ceived. 

3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor 
ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the 
mind, is what everybody v/ill allow. And to me 
it is no less evident that the various sensations, or 
ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or 
combined together (that is, whatever objects they 
compose) , cannot exist otherwise than in a mind 
perceiving them. — I think an intuitive knowledge 
may be obtained of this by any one that shall attend 
to what is meant by the term exist, when applied to 
sensible things. The table I write on I say exists, 
that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my 
study I should say it existed — meaning thereby 
that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or 
that some other spirit actually does perceive it. 
There was an odour, that is, it was smelt ; there was 



SpiHtualism or Idealism 325 

a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, 
and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all 
that I can understand by these and the like expres- 
sions. For as to what is said of the absolute ex- 
istence of unthinking things without any relation 
to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unin- 
telligible. Their esse is perxipi, nor is it possible 
they should have any existence out of the minds or 
thinking things which perceive them. 

4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing 
amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in 
a word all sensible objects, have an existence, nat- 
ural or real, distinct from their being perceived by 
the understanding. But, with how great an assur- 
ance and acquiescence soever this principle may be 
entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in 
his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, 
perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For, 
what are the fore-mentioned objects but the things 
we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive be- 
sides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not 
plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any com- 
bination of them, should exist unperceived? 

6. Some truths there are so near and obvious 
to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see 
them. Such I take this important one to be, viz., 
that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the 
earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the 
mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence 
without a mind, that their being is to be perceived 
or known ; that consequently so long as they are not 
actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind 
or that of any other created spirit, they must either 

22 



326 Readings in Philosophy 

have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind 
of some Eternal Spirit — it being perfectly unintel- 
ligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstrac- 
tion, to attribute to any single part of them an exist- 
ence independent of a spirit. To be convinced of 
which, the reader need only reflect, and try to sepa- 
rate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible 
thing from its being perceived. 

7. From what has been said it is evident there 
is not any other Substance than Spirit, or that which 
perceives. But, for the fuller demonstration of 
this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities 
are colour, figure, motion, smell, taste, etc., i. e., the 
ideas perceived by sense. Now, for an idea to exist 
in an unperceiving thing is a manifest contradic- 
tion, for to have an idea is all one as to perceive; 
that therefore wherein colour, figure, etc., exist must 
perceive them; hence it is clear there can be no 
unthinking substance or substratum of those ideas. 

8. But, say you, though the ideas themselves do 
not exist without the mind, yet there may be things 
like them,. whereof they are copies or resemblances, 
which things exist without the mind in an unthink- 
ing substance. I answer, an idea can be like nothing, 
but an idea; a colour or figure can be like 
nothing but another colour or figure. If we look 
but never so little into our own thoughts, we shall 
find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except 
only betv/een our ideas. Again, I ask whether those 
supposed originals or external things, of which our 
ideas are the pictures or representations, be them- 
selves perceivable or no ? If they are, then they are 
ideas and we have gained our point ; but if you say 



Spiritualism or Idealism 327 

they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense 
to assert a colour is like something which is in- 
visible; hard or soft, like something which is in- 
tangible ; and so of the rest. 

9. Some there are who make a distinction be- 
twixt prir/iary and secofidary qualities. By the 
former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, 
solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the lat- 
ter they denote all other sensible qualities, as col- 
ours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The ideas we 
have of these they acknowledge not to be the re- 
semblances of anything existing without the mind, 
or unperceived, but they will have our ideas of the 
primary qualities to be patterns or images of things 
which exist without the mind, in an unthinking 
substance which they call Matter. By Matter, 
therefore, we are to understand an inert, senseless 
substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do 
actually subsist. But it is evident, from what we 
have already shewn, that extension, figure, and mo- 
tion are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an 
idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that 
consequently neither they nor their archetypes can 
exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is 
plain that the very notion of what is called Matter or 
co7'poreal substance, involves a contradiction in it. 

10. They who assert that figure, motion, and the 
rest of the primary or original qualities do exist 
without the mind in unthinking substances, do at 
the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, 
heat, cold, and such like secondary qualities, do not 
— which they tell us are sensations existing in the 
mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by 



328 Readings in Philosophy 

the different size, texture, and motion of the minute 
particles of matter. This they take for an un- 
doubted truth, which they can demonstrate beyond 
all exception. Now, if it be certain that those origi- 
nal qualities are inseparably united .with the other 
sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable 
of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows 
that they exist only in the mind. But I desire any 
one to reflect and try whether he can, by any ab- 
straction of thought, conceive the extension and 
motion of a body without all other sensible qualities. 
For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in 
my power to frame an idea of a body extended and 
moving, but I must withal give it some colour or 
other sensible quality which is acknowledged to exist 
only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and 
motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are in- 
conceivable. Where therefore the other sensible 
qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the 
mind and nowhere else. 

11. Again, great and small, swift and sloiv, are 
allowed to exist nowhere without the mind, being 
entirely relative, and changing as the frame or posi- 
tion of the organs of sense varies. The extension 
therefore which exists without the mind is neither 
great nor small, the motion neither swift nor slow, 
that is, they are nothing at all. But, say you, they 
are extension in general, and motion in general : thus 
we see how much the tenet of extended movable 
substances existing without the mind depends on the 
strange doctrine of abstract ideas. And here I can- 
not but remark how nearly the vague and indeter- 
minate description of Matter or corporeal substance, 



Spiritualism or Idealism 329 

which the modern philosophers are run into by their 
own principles, resembles that antiquated and so 
much ridiculed notion of materia prima, to be met 
with in Aristotle and his followers. Without exten- 
sion solidity cannot be conceived ; since therefore it 
has been shewn that extension exists not in an un- 
thinking substance, the same must also be true of 
solidity. 

12. That number is entirely the creature of the 
mind, even though the other qualities be allowed to 
exist without, will be evident to whoever considers 
that the same thing bears a different denomination 
of number as the mind views it with different re- 
spects. Thus, the same extension is one, or three, 
or thirty-six, according as the mind considers it with 
reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch. Number is 
so visibly relative, and dependent on men's under- 
standing, that it is strange to think how any one 
should give it an absolute existence without the 
mind. We say one book, one page, one line, etc. ; 
all these are equally units, though some contain 
several of the others. And in each instance, it is 
plain, the unit relates to some particular combina- 
tion of ideas arbitrarily put together by the mind. 

13. Unity I know some will have to be a simple 
or uncompounded idea, accompanying all other ideas 
into the mind. That I have any such idea answer- 
ing the. word unity I do not find ; and if I had, me- 
thinks I could not miss finding it : on the contrary, 
it should be the most familiar to my understanding, 
since it is said to accompany all other ideas, and to 
be perceived by all the ways of sensation and re- 
flexion. To say no more, it is an abstract idea. 



330 Readings in Philosophy 

14. I shall farther add, that, after the same 
manner as modern philosophers prove certain sen- 
sible qualities to have no existence in Matter, or 
without the mind, the same thing may be likewise 
proved of all other sensible qualities whatsoever. 
Thus, for instance, it is said that heat and cold are 
affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns 
of real beings, existing in the corporeal substances 
which excite them, for that the same body which 
appears cold to one hand seems warm to another. 
Now, why may we not as well argue that figure and 
extension are not patterns or resemblances of qual- 
ities existing in Matter, because to the same eye at 
different stations, or eyes of a different texture at 
the same station, they appear various, and cannot 
therefore be the images of anything settled and de- 
terminate without the mind? Again, it is proved 
that sweetness is not really in the sapid thing, be- 
cause the thing remaining unaltered the sweetness 
is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever or other- 
wise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say 
that motion is not without the mind, since if the 
succession of ideas in the mind become swifter, the 
motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower with- 
out any alteration in any external object? 

15. In short, let any one consider those argu- 
ments which are thought manifestly to prove that 
colours and taste exist only in the mind, and he 
shall find they may with equal force be brought to 
prove the same thing of extension, figure, and mo- 
tion. Though it must be confessed this method of 
arguing does not so much prove that there is no 
extension or colour in an outward object, as that 



Sviritimlism or Idealism 331 

we do not know by sense which is the true extension 
or colour of the object. But the arguments forego- 
ing plainly shew it to be impossible that any colour 
or extension at all, or other sensible quality whatso- 
ever, should exist in an unthinking subject without 
the mind, or in truth, that there should be any such 
thing as an outward object. 

B. The Monadology. 

The essential features of the theory of Leibniz are 
contained in the following from the Monadology: 

1. The^ Monad, of which we shall here speak, is 
merely a simple substance entering into those which 
are compound ; simple, that is to say, without parts. 

2. And there must be simple substances, since 
there are compounds ; for the compound is only a 
collection or aggregate of simples. 

3. Where there are no parts, neither extension, 
nor figure, nor divisibility is possible; and these 
Monads are the veritable Atoms of Nature — in one 
word, the Elements of things, 

4. There is thus no danger of dissolution, and 
there is no conceivable way in which a simple sub- 
stance can perish naturally. 

5. For the same reason, there is no way in which 
a simple substance can begin naturally, since it 
could not be formed by composition. 

6. Therefore we may say that the Monads can 
neither begin nor end in any other way than all at 
once; that is to say, they cannot begin except by 



^ Leibniz, The Monadology; translated by F. H. Hedge, 
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. I, 1867. 



332 Readings in Philosophy 

creation, nor end except by annihilation; whereas 
that which is compounded, begins and ends by parts. 

7. There is also no intelligible way in which a 
Monad can be altered or changed in its interior by 
any other creature, since it would be impossible to 
transpose anything in it, or conceive in it any in- 
ternal movement — any movement excited, directed, 
augmented or diminished within, such as may take 
place in compound bodies, where there is change of 
parts. The Monads have no windows through which 
anything can enter or go forth. It would be im- 
possible for any accidents to detach themselves and 
go forth from the substances, as did formerly the 
Sensible Species of the Schoolmen. Accordingly, 
neither substance nor accident can enter a Monad 
from without. 

8. Nevertheless Monads must have qualities — 
otherwise they would not even be entities; and if 
simple substances did not differ in their qualities, 
there would be no means by which we could become 
aware of the changes of things, since all that is in 
compound bodies is derived from simple ingredients, 
and Monads, being without qualities, would be indis- 
tinguishable one from another, seeing also they do 
not differ in quantity. Consequently, a plenum be- 
ing supposed, each place could in any movement 
receive only the just equivalent of what it had had 
before, and one state of things would be indistin- 
guishable from another. 

9. Moreover, each Monad must differ from every 
other, for there are never two beings in nature per- 
fectly alike, and in which it.is impossible to find an 



Spiritualism or Idealism 333 

internal difference, or one founded on some intrinsic 
denomination. 

10. I take it for granted, furthermore, that every 
created being is subject to change — consequently the 
created Monad; and likewise that this change is 
continual in each. 

11. It follows, from what we have now said, that 
the natural changes of Monads proceed from an in- 
ternal principle, since no external cause can influ- 
ence the interior. 

12. But, besides the principle of change, there 
must also be a detail of changes, embracing, so to 
speak, the specification and the variety of the simple 
substances. 

13. This detail must involve multitude in unity 
or in simplicity; for as all natural changes proceed 
by degrees, something changes and something re- 
mains, and consequently there must be in the simple 
substance a plurality of affections and relations, 
although there are no parts. 

14. This shifting state, which involves and rep- 
resents multitude in unity, or in the simple sub- 
stance, is nothing else than what we call Perception, 
which must be carefully distinguished from apper- 
ception, or consciousness, as will appear in the 
sequel. Here it is that the Cartesians have espe- 
cially failed, making no account of those perceptions 
of which we are not conscious. It is this that has 
led them to suppose that spirits are the only Monads, 
and that there are no souls of brutes or other Entel- 
echies. It is owing to this that they have vulgarly 
confounded protracted torpor with actual death, and 
have fallen in with the scholastic prejudice, which 



334 Readings in Philosophy 

believes in souls entirely separate. Hence, also, ill- 
affected minds have been confirmed in the opinion 
that the soul is mortal. 

15. The action of the internal principle which 
causes the change, or the passage from one percep- 
tion to another, may be called Appetition. It is true, 
the desire cannot always completely attain to every 
perception to which it tends, but it always attains 
to something thereof, and arrives at new percep- 
tions. 

17. Besides, it must be confessed that Perception 
and its consequences are inexplicable by mechanical 
causes — that is to say, by figures and motions. If 
we imagine a machine so constructed as to produce 
thought, sensation, perception, we may conceive it 
as magnified — the same proportions being pre- 
served — to such an extent that one might enter it 
like a mill. This being supposed, we should find in 
it on inspection only pieces which impel each other, 
but nothing which can explain a perception. It is 
in the simple substance, therefore — not in the com- 
pound, or in machinery — that we must look for 
that phenomenon; and in the simple substance we 
find nothing else — nothing, that is, but perceptions 
and their changes. Therein also, and therein only, 
consist all the internal actions of simple substances. 

18. We might give the name of Entelechies to 
all simple substances or created Monads, inasmuch 
as there is in them a certain completeness (perfec- 
tion), (exouo-t TO erreAes). There is a suflflciency 
(avTapKeia) which makcs them the sources of their 
own internal actions, and, as it were, incorporeal 
automata. 



spiritualism or Idealism 335 

19. If we choose to give the name of soul to all 
that has perceptions and desires, in the general sense 
which I have just indicated, all simple substances or 
created Monads may be called souls. But as senti- 
ment is something more than simple perception, I am 
willing that the general name of Monads or Entel- 
echies shall suffice for those simple substances which 
have nothing but perceptions, and that the term 
souls shall be confined to those whose perceptions 
are more distinct, and accompanied by memory. 

20. For we experience in ourselves a state in 
which we remember nothing, and have no distinct 
perception, as when we are in a swoon or in a pro- 
found and dreamiless sleep. In this state the soul 
does not differ sensibly from a simple Monad; but 
since this state .is not permanent, and since the soul 
delivers herself from it, she is something more. 

21. And it does not by any means follow, in that 
case, that the simple substance is without percep- 
tion: that, indeed, is impossible, for the reasons 
given above ; for it cannot perish, neither can it sub- 
sist without affection of some kind, which is noth- 
ing else than its perception. But where there is a 
great number of minute perceptions, and where 
nothing is distinct, one is stunned, as when we turn 
round and round in continual succession in the same 
direction ; whence arises a vertigo, which may cause 
us to faint, and which prevents us from distinguish- 
ing anything. And possibly death may produce this 
state for a time in animals: 

22. And as eveiy present condition of a simple 
substance is a natural consequence of its antecedent 
condition, so its present is big with its future. 



336 Readings in Philosophy 

23. Then, as on waking from a state of stupor, 
we become conscious of our perceptions, we must 
have had perceptions, although unconscious of them, 
immediately before awaking. For each perception 
can have no other natural origin but an antecedent 
perception, as every motion must be derived from 
one which preceded it. 

24. Thus it appears that if there were no dis- 
tinction — no relief, so to speak — no enhanced 
flavor in our perceptions, we should continue for- 
ever in a state of stupor; and this is the condition 
of the naked Monad. 

25. And so we see that nature has given to ani- 
mals enhanced perceptions, by the care which she 
has taken to furnish them with organs which collect 
many rays of light and many undulations of air, in- 
creasing their efficacy by their union. There is 
something approaching to this in odor, in taste, in 
touch, and perhaps in a multitude of other senses of 
which we have no knowledge. I shall presently ex- 
plain how that which passes in the soul represents 
that which takes place in the organs. 

26. Memory gives to the soul a kind of consecu- 
tive action which imitates reason, but must be dis- 
tinguished from it. We observe that animals, hav- 
ing a perception of something which strikes them, 
and of which they have previously had a similar per- 
ception, expect, through the representation of their 
memory, the recurrence of that which was associ- 
ated with it in their previous perception, and incline 
to the same feelings which they then had. For ex- 
ample, when we show dogs the cane, they remember 
the pain which it caused them, and whine and run, 



Spiritualism or Idealism 337 

27. And the lively imagination, which strikes and 
excites them, arises from the magnitude or the mul- 
titude of their previous perceptions. For often a 
powerful impression produces suddenly the effect of 
long habit, or of moderate perceptions often re- 
peated. 

28. In men as in brutes, the consecutiveness of 
their perceptions is due to the principle of memory 
— like empirics in medicine, who have only practice 
without theory. And we are mere empirics in three- 
fourths of our acts. For example, when we expect 
that the sun will rise to-morrow, we judge so em- 
*pirically, because it has always risen hitherto. Only 
the astronomer judges by an act of reason. 

29. But the cognition of necessary and eternal 
truths is that which distinguishes us from mere 
animals. It is this which gives us Reason and 
Science, and raises us to the knowledge of ourselves 
and of God; and it is this in us which we call a 
reasonable soul or spirit. 

30. It is also by the cognition of necessary truths, 
and by their abstractions, that we rise to acts of 
reflection, which give us the idea of that which calls 
itself "I," and which leads us to consider that this 
or that is in us. And thus, while thinking of our- 
selves, we think of Being, of substance, simple or 
compound, of the immaterial, and of God himself. 
We conceive that that which in us is limited, is in 
him without limit. And these reflective acts fur- 
nish the principal objects of our reasonings. 

38. And thus the final reason of things must be 
found in a necessary Substance, in which the detail 



338 Readings in Philosophy 

of changes exists eminently as their source. And 
this is that which we call God. 

39. Now this Substance being a sufficient reason 
of all this detail, which also is everywhere linked to- 
gether, the7'e is but one God, and this God suffices. 

40. We may also conclude that this supreme Sub- 
stance, which is Only, Universal, and Necessary — 
having nothing outside of it which is independent 
of it, and being a simple sequence of possible beings 
— must be incapable of limits, and must contain as 
much of reality as is possible. 

41. Whence it follows that God is perfect, per- 
fection being nothing but the magnitude of positive, 
reality taken exactly, setting aside the limits or 
bounds in that which is limited. And there, where 
there are no bounds, that is to say, in God, perfec- 
tion is absolutely infinite. 

42. It follows also that the creatures have their 
perfections from the influence of God, but they have 
their imperfections from their proper nature, in- 
capable of existing without bounds ; for it is by this 
that they are distinguished from God. 

43. It is true, moreover, that God is not only the 
source of existences, but also of essences, so far as 
real, or of that which is real in the possible ; because 
the divine understanding is the region of eternal 
truths, or of the ideas on which they depend, and 
without Him there would be nothing real in the pos- 
sibilities and not only nothing existing, but also 
nothing possible. 

44. At the same time, if there be a reality in 
the essences or possibilities, or in the eternal truths, 
this reality must be founded in something existing 



Spiritualism or Idealism 339 

and actual, consequently in the existence of the nec- 
essary Being, in whom essence includes existence, or 
with whom it is sufficient to be possible in order to 
be actual. 

45. Thus God alone (or the necessary Being) 
possesses this privilege, that he must exist, if pos- 
sible; and since nothing can hinder the possibility 
of that which includes no bounds, no negation, and 
consequently no contradiction, that alone is suffi- 
cient to establish the existence of God a priori. We 
have likewise proved it by the reality of eternal 
truths. But we have also just proved it a posteriori 
by showing that, since contingent beings exist, they 
can have their ultimate and sufficient reason only in 
some necessary Being, who contains the reason of 
his existence in himself. 

C. Primacy of the Will in Philosophy. 
Ethical voluntaristic romanticism is given typical 
expression in the following from Fichte: 

This,^ then, is my whole sublime vocation, my true 
nature. I am a member of two orders : — the one 
purely spiritual, in which I rule by my will alone; 
the other sensuous, in which I operate by my deed. 
The whole end of reason is pure activity, absolutely 
by itself alone, having no need of any instrument out 
of itself, — independence of everything which is not 
reason, — absolute freedom. The will is the living 
principle of reason, — is itself reason, when purely 



^ Fichte, J. G., The Vocation of Man, from Sections III and 
IV, pages 350-361; translated by Wm. Smith, edition of 
1873. 



340 Readings in Philosophy 

and simply apprehended; that reason is active by 
itself alone, means, that pure will, merely as such, 
lives and rules. It is only the Infinite Reason that 
lives immediately and wholly in this purely spiritual 
order. The finite reason, — which does not of itself 
constitute the world of reason, but is only one of its 
members, — lives necessarily at the same time in a 
sensuous order; that is to say, in one which presents 
to it another object, beyond a purely spiritual ac- 
tivity: — a material object, to be promoted by in- 
struments and powers which indeed stand under 
the immediate dominion of the will, but whose ac- 
tivity is also conditioned by their own natural laws. 
Yet as surely as reason is reason, must the will oper- 
ate absolutely by itself, and independently of the 
natural laws by which the material action is deter- 
mined ; — and hence the sensuous life of every finite 
being- points towards a higher, into which the will, 
by itself alone, may open the way, and of which it 
may acquire possession, — a possession which indeed 
we must again sensuously conceive of as a state, and 
not as a mere will. 

These two orders, — the purely spiritual and the 
sensuous, the latter consisting possibly of an in- 
numerable series of particular lives, — have existed 
since the first moment of the development of an ac- 
tive reason within me, and still proceed parallel to 
each other. The latter order is only a phenomenon 
for myself, and for those with whom I am associated 
in this life; the former alone gives it significance, 
purpose, and value. I am immortal, imperishable, 
eternal, as soon as I form the resolution to obey the 
laws of reason; I do not need to become so. The 



Spiritualism or Idealism 341 

super-sensual world is no future world; it is now 
present; it can at no point of finite existence be 
more present than at another; not more present 
after an existence of myriads of lives than at this 
moment. My sensuous existence may, in future, 
assume other forms, but these are just as little the 
true life, as its present form. By that resolution I 
lay hold on eternity, and cast off this earthly life 
and all other forms of sensuous life which may yet 
lie before me in futurity, and place myself far above 
them. I become the sole source of my own being 
and its phenomena, and, henceforth, unconditioned 
by anything without me, I have life in myself. My 
wiil, which is directed by no foreign agency in the 
order of the super-sensual world, but by myself 
alone, is this source of true life, and of eternity. 

It is my will alone which is this source of true life, 
and of eternity ; — only by recognising this will as 
the peculiar seat of moral goodness, and by actually 
raising it thereto, do I obtain the assurance and the 
possession of that super-sensual world. 

Without regard to any conceivable or visible ob- 
ject, without inquiry as to whether my will may be 
followed by any result other than the mere volition, 
— I must will in accordance with the moral law. 
My will stands alone, apart from all that is not it- 
self, and is its own world merely by itself and for 
itself; not only as being itself an absolutely first, 
primary and original power, before which there is 
no preceding influence by which it may be governed, 
but also as being followed by no conceivable or com- 
prehensible second step in the series, coming after 
it, by which its activity may be brought under the 

23 



342 Readings in Philosophy 

dominion of a foreign law. Did there proceed from 
it any second, and from this again a third result, and 
so forth, in any conceivable sensuous world opposed 
to the spiritual world, then would its strength be 
broken by the resistance it would encounter from 
the independent elements of such a world which it 
would set in motion ; the mode of its activity would 
no longer exactly correspond to the purpose ex- 
pressed in the volition ; and the will would no longer 
remain free, but be partly limited by the peculiar, 
laws of its heterogeneous sphere of action. And 
thus must I actually regard the will in the present 
sensuous world, the only one known to me. I am 
indeed compelled to believe, and consequently to act 
as if I thought, that by my mere volition, my tongue, 
my hand, or my foot, might be set in motion; but 
how a mere aspiration, an impress of intelligence 
upon itself, such as will is, can be the principle of 
motion to a heavy material mass, — this I not only 
find it impossible to conceive, but the mere assertion 
is, before the tribunal of the understanding, a pal- 
pable absurdity ; — here the movement of matter 
even in myself can be explained only by the internal 
forces of matter itself. 

Such a view of my will as I have taken, can, how- 
ever, be attained only through an intimate convic- 
tion that it is not merely the highest active principle 
for this world, — which it certainly might be, with- 
out having freedom in itself, by the mere influence 
of the system of the universe, perchance, as we must 
conceive of a formative power in Nature, — but that 
it absolutely disregards all earthly objects, and gen- 
erally all objects lying out of itself, and recognises 



Spiritualism or Idealism 343 

itself, for its own sake, as its own ultimate end. But 
by such a view of my will I am at once directed to a 
super-sensual order of things, in which the will, by 
itself alone and without any instrument lying out of 
itself, becomes an efficient cause in a sphere which, 
like itself, is purely spiritual, and is thoroughly 
accessible to it. That moral volition is demanded 
of us absolutely for its own sake alone, — a truth 
which I discover only as a fact in my inward con- 
sciousness, and to the knowledge of which I cannot 
attain in any other way : — this was the first step 
of my thought. That this demand is reasonable, 
and the source and standard of all else that is 
reasonable; that it is not modelled upon any other 
thing whatever, but that all other things must, on 
the contrary, model themselves upon it, — and be 
dependent upon it, — a conviction which also I can- 
not arrive at from without, but can attain only by 
inward experience, by means of the unhesitating 
and immovable assent which I freely accord to this 
demand : — this was the second step of my thought. 
And from these two terms I have attained to faith in 
a super-sensual Eternal World. If I abandon the 
former, the latter falls to the ground. If it were 
true, — as many say it is, assuming it without fur- 
ther proof as self-evident and extolling it as the 
highest summit of human wisdom, — that all human 
virtue must have before it a certain definite external 
object, and that it must first be assured of the pos- 
sibility of attaining this object, before it can act 
and before it can become virtue ; that, consequently, 
reason by no means contains within itself the prin- 
ciple and the standard of its own activity, but must 



344 Readings in Philosophy 

receive this standard from without, through con- 
templation of an external world ; — if this were 
true, then might the ultimate end of our existence be 
accomplished here below; human nature might be 
completely developed and exhausted by our earthly 
vocation, and we should have no rational ground for 
raising our thoughts above the present life. 



But every thinker who has anywhere acquired 
those first principles even historically, moved per- 
haps by a mere love of the new and unusual, and 
who is able to prosecute a correct course of reason- 
ing from them, might speak and teach as I have 
now spoken to myself. He would then present us 
with the thoughts of some other being, not with his 
own ; everything would float before him empty and 
without significance, because he would "be without 
the sense whereby he might apprehend its reality. 
He is a blind man, who, upon certain true principles 
concerning colours which he has learned historically, 
has built a perfectly correct theory of colour, not- 
withstanding that there is in reality no colour exist- 
ing for him ; — he can tell how, under certain condi- 
tions, it must he; but to him it is not so, because he 
does not stand under these conditions. The faculty 
by which we lay hold on Eternal Life is to be at- 
tained only by actually renouncing the sensuous and 
its objects, and sacrificing them to that law which 
takes cognizance of our will only and not of our ac- 
tions ; — renouncing them with the firmest convic- 
tion that it is reasonable for us to do so, — nay, that 
it is the only thing reasonable for us. By this re- 



spiritualism or Idealism 345 

nimciation of the Earthly does faith in the Eternal 
first arise in our soul, and is there enshrined apart, 
as the only support to which we can cling after we 
have given up all else, — as the only animating prin- 
ciple that can elevate our minds and inspire our 
lives. We must indeed, according to the figure of 
a sacred doctrine, first "die unto the world and be 
born again, before we can enter the kingdom of 
God." 

I see — Oh I now see clearly before me the cause 
of my former indifference and blindness concerning 
spiritual things ! Absorbed by mere earthly objects, 
lost in them with all our thoughts and efforts, moved 
and urged onward only by the notion of a result ly- 
ing beyond ourselves, — by the desire of such a re- 
sult and of our enjoyment therein, — insensible and 
dead to the pure impulse of reason, which gives a 
law to itself, and offers to our aspirations a purely 
spiritual end, — the immortal Psyche remains, with 
fettered pinions, fastened to the earth. Our phi- 
losophy becomes the history of our own heart and 
life ; and according to what we ourselves are, do we 
conceive of man and his vocation. Never impelled 
by any other motive than the desire after what can 
be actually realised in this world, there is for us no 
true freedom, — no freedom whicTi holds the ground 
of its determination absolutely and entirely within 
itself. Our freedom is, at best, that of the self- 
forming plant; not essentially higher in its nature, 
but only more artistical in its results ; not producing 
a mere material form with roots, leaves, and blos- 
soms, but a mind with impulses, thoughts, and ^c- 



346 Readings ifi Philosophy 

tions. We cannot have the slightest conception of 
true freedom, because we do not ourselves possess 
it; when it is spoken of, we either bring down what 
is said to the level of our own notions, or at once 
declare all such talk to be nonsense. Without the 
idea of freedom, we are likewise without the faculty 
for another world. Everything of this kind floats 
past before us like words that are not addressed to 
us; like a pale shadow, without colour or meaning, 
which we know not how to lay hold of or retain. 
We leave it as we find it, without the least participa- 
tion or sympathy. Or should we ever be urged by 
a more active zeal to consider it seriously, we then 
convince ourselves to our own satisfaction that all 
such ideas are untenable and worthless reveries, 
which the man of sound understanding unhesitat- 
ingly rejects; and according to the premises from 
which we proceed, made up as they are of our in- 
ward experiences, we are perfectly in the right, and 
secure from either refutation or conversion so long 
as we remain what we are. The excellent doctrines 
which are taught amongst us with a special au- 
thority, concerning freedom, duty, and everlasting 
life, become to us romantic fables, like those of Tar- 
tarus and the Elysian fields; although we do not 
publish to the world this our secret opinion, because 
we find it expedient, by means of these figures, to 
maintain an outward decorum among the populace ; 
or, should we be less reflective, and ourselves bound 
in the chains of authority, then we sink to the level 
of the common mind, and believing what, thus under- 
stood, would be mere foolish fables, we find in those 
pure spiritual symbols only the promise of continu- 



Spiritualism or Idealism 347 

ing throughout eternity the same miserable existence 
which we possess here below. 

In one word : — only by the fundamental improve- 
ment of my will does a new light arise within me 
concerning my existence and vocation ; without this, 
however much I may speculate, and with what rare 
intellectual gifts soever I may be endowed, darkness 
remains within me and around me. The improve- 
ment of the heart alone leads to true wisdom. Let 
then my whole life be unceasingly devoted to this 
one purpose. 

IV 

My Moral Will merely as such, in and through it- 
self, shall certainly and invariably produce conse- 
quences; every determination of my will in accord- 
ance with duty, although no action should follow it, 
shall operate in another, to me incomprehensible, 
world, in which nothing but this moral determina- 
tion of the will shall possess efficient activity. What 
is it that is assumed in this conception? 

Obviously a Laiv; a rule absolutely without excep- 
tion, according to which a will determined by duty 
must have consequences; just as in the material 
world which surrounds me I assume a law according 
to which this ball, when thrown by my hand with 
this particular force, in this particular direction, 
necessarily moves in such a direction with a certain 
degree of velocity, — perhaps strikes another ball 
with a certain amount of force, which in its turn 
moves on with a certain velocity, — and so on. As 
here, in the mere direction and motion of my hand, I 
already perceive and apprehend all the consequent 



348 Readings in Philosophy 

directions and movements, with the same certainty 
as if they were already present before me; even so 
do I embrace by means of my virtuous will a series 
of necessary and inevitable consequences in the 
spiritual world, as if they were already present be- 
fore me; only that I cannot define them as I do 
those in the material world, — that is, I only know 
that they must be, but not hoiv they shall be ; — and 
even in doing this I conceive of a Law of the spiritual 
world, in which my pure will is one of the moving 
forces, as my hand is one of the moving forces of 
the material world. My own firm confidence in 
these results, and the conceptions of this Law of the 
spiritual world, are one and the same ; — they are 
not two thoughts, one of which arises by means of 
the other, but they are entirely the same thought; 
just as the confidence with which I calculate on a 
certain motion in a material body, and the concep- 
tion of a mechanical law of nature on which that 
motion depends, are one and the same. The con- 
ception of a Law expresses nothing more than the 
firm, immovable confidence of reason in a principle, 
and the absolute impossibility of admitting its op- 
posite. 

I assume such a law of a spiritual world, — not 
given by my will nor by the will of any finite being, 
nor by the will of all finite beings taken together, 
but to which my will, and the will of all finite beings, 
is subject. Neither I, nor any finite and therefore 
sensuous being, can conceive how a mere will can 
have consequences, nor what may be the true nature 
of those consequences; for herein consists the es- 
sential character of our finite nature, — that we are 



Spiritualism or Idealism 349 

unable to conceive this, — that having indeed our 
will, as such, wholly within our power, we are yet 
compelled by our sensuous nature ta regard the con- 
sequences of that will as sensuous states : — how 
then can I, or any other finite being whatever, pro- 
pose to ourselves as objects, and thereby give reality 
to, that which we can neither imagine nor conceive? 
I cannot say that, in the material world, my hand, or 
any other body which belongs to that world and is 
subject to the universal law of gravity, brings this 
law into operation ; — these bodies themselves stand 
under this law, and are able to set another body in 
motion only in accordance with this law, and only in 
so far as that body, by virtue of this law, partakes 
of the universal moving power of Nature. Just as 
little can a finite will give a law to the super-sensual 
world, which no finite spirit can embrace; but all 
finite wills stand under the law of that world, and 
can produce results therein only inasmuch as that 
law already exists, and inasmuch as they themselves, 
in accordance v^^ith the form of that law which is 
applicable to finite wills, bring themselves under its 
conditions, and within the sphere of its activity by 
moral obedience; — by moral obedience, I say, the 
only tie which unites them to that higher world, the 
only nerve that descends from it to them, and the 
only organ through M^hich they can re-act upon it. 
As the universal power of attraction embraces all 
bodies, and holds them together in themselves and 
with each other, and the movement of each separate 
body is possible only on the supposition of this 
power, so does that super-sensual law unite, hold 
together, and embrace all finite reasonable beings. 



350 Readings in Philosophy 

My will, and the will of all finite beings, may be 
regarded from a double point of view : — partly as 
a mere volition, an internal act directed upon itself 
alone, and, in so far, the will is complete in itself, 
concluded in this act of volition ; — partly as some- 
thing beyond this, a fact. It assumes the latter 
form to me, as soon as I regard it as completed ; but 
it must also become so beyond me : — in the world 
of sense, as the moving principle, for instance, of 
my hand, from the movement of which, again, other 
movements follow ; — in the super-sensual world, as 
the principle of a series of spiritual consequences of 
which I have no conception. In the former point of 
view, as a mere act of volition, it stands wholly 
within my own power; its assumption of the latter 
character, that of an active first principle, depends 
not upon me, but on a law to which I myself am 
subject;- — on the law of nature in the world of 
sense, on a super-sensual law in the world of pure 
thought. 

What, then, is this law of the spiritual world 
which I conceive? This idea now stands before me, 
in fixed and perfect shape; I cannot and dare not 
add anything whatever to it ; I have only to express 
and interpret it distinctly. It is obviously not such 
as I may suppose the principle of my own, or any 
other possible sensuous v/orld, to be, — a fixed, inert 
existence, from which, by the encounter of a will, 
some internal power may be evolved, — something 
altogether different froni a mere will. For, — and 
this is the substance of my belief, — my will, abso- 
lutely by itself, and without the intervention of any 
instrument that might weaken its expression, shall 



Spiritualism or Idealism 351 

act in a perfectly congenial sphere, — reason upon 
reason, spirit upon spirit ; — in a sphere to which 
nevertheless it does not give the law of life, activity, 
and progress, but which has that law in itself ; — 
therefore, upon self-active reason. But self-active 
reason is will. The law of the super-sensual world 
must, therefore, be a Will, — a Will which operates 
purely as will ; by itself, and absolutely without any 
instrument or sensible material of its activity ; which 
is, at the same time, both act and product; with 
whom to will is to do, to command is to execute ; in 
which therefore the instinctive demand of reason 
for absolute freedom and independence is realised, 
— a Will which in itself is law; determined by no 
fancy or caprice, through no previous reflection, 
hesitation or doubt : — but eternal, unchangeable, 
on which we may securely and infallibly rely, as the 
physical man relies with certainty on the laws of his 
world : — A will in which the moral will of finite 
beings, and this alone, has sure and unfailing re- 
sults ; since for it all else is unavailing, all else is as 
if it were not. 

That sublime Will thus pursues no solitary path 
withdrawn from the other parts of the world of 
reason. There is a spiritual bond between Him and 
all finite rational beings; and He himself is this 
spiritual bond of the rational universe. Let me 
will, purely and decidedly, my duty; and He wills 
that, in the spiritual world at least, my will shall 
prosper. Every moral resolution of a finite being 
goes up before Him, and — to speak after the man- 
ner of mortals — moves and 'determines Him, not 
in consequence of a momentary satisfaction, but in 



352 Readings in Philosophy 

accordance with the eternal law of His being. With 
surprising clearness does this thought, which hither- 
to was surrounded with darkness, now reveal itself 
to my soul ; the thought that my will, merely as such, 
and through itself, shall have results. It has results, 
because it is immediately and infallibly perceived by 
■another Will to which it is related, which is its own 
accomplishment and the only living principle of the 
spiritual world; in Him it has its first results, and 
through Him it acquires an influence on the whole 
bi.iritual world, which throughout is but a product 
of that Infinite Will. 

Thus do I approach — the mortal must speak in 
his own language — thus do I approach that Infinite 
Will; and the voice of conscience in my soul, which 
teaches me in every situation of life what I have 
there to do, is the channel through which again His 
influence descends upon me. That voice, sensualized 
by my environment, and translated into my lan- 
guage, is the oracle of the Eternal World which an- 
nounces to me how I am to perform my part in the 
order of the spiritual universe, or in the Infinite Will 
who is Himself that order. I cannot, indeed, sur- 
vey or comprehend that spiritual order, and I need 
not to do so ; — I am but a link in its chain, and can 
no more judge of the whole, than a single tone of 
music can judge of the entire haimony of which it 
forms a part. But what I myself ought to be in 
this harmony of spirits I must know, for it is only 
I myself who can make me so, — and this is im- 
mediately revealed to me by a voice whose tones 
descend upon me from that other world. Thus do 
I stand connected with the One who alone has ex- 



Spiritualism or Idealism 353 

istence, and thus do I participate in His being. 
There is nothing real, lasting, imperishable in me, 
but these two elements : — the voice of conscience, 
and my free obedience. By the first, the spiritual 
world bows down to me, and embraces me as one of 
its members; by the second I raise myself into this 
world, apprehend it, and re-act upon it. That In- 
finite Will is the mediator between it and me; for 
He himself is the original source both of it and me. 
This is the one True and Imperishable for which 
my soul yearns even from its inmost depths; '11 
else is mere appearance, ever vanishing, and ever 
returning in a new semblance. 



D. The Objectivity of Thought. 

The following passage from one of Hegel's best 
known and most influential works gives a summary 
in his own manner of the fundamental features of 
his doctrine of the objectivity of thought, of his 
metaphysical logic, or identification of the movement 
of thought v/ith that of world history : 

Thoughts^ may under proper conditions be called 
objective; and among them are to be reckoned the 
forms which are treated in the first instance in the 
traditional logic; and which are usually regarded 
as merely forms of conscious thought. Logic there- 
fore coincides with metaphysics as the science of 
things as grasped in thoughts adequate to the ex- 
pression of their essence. 



' Hegel, Logic, §24 ; translated from the Encyclopadie der 
Philosophischen Wissenschaften, edition of 1832. 



354 Readings in Philosophy 

The relation of such forms as concept, judgment, 
and inference, to others such as causality, etc., is to 
be considered when we come to it in our Logic. But 
it is also to be noted in advance that inasmuch as 
thought seeks to form a conception of things, this 
conception (and therewith also its most elemental 
forms, judgment and inference) can not consist of 
forms and relations which are foreign and alien to 
things. Reflection, it was said above, leads to the 
general aspect of things ; but this itself is one phase 
of conception. The assertion that there i& intel- 
ligence, — Eeason — in the world signifies the same 
thing as does the expression ''Objective Thought". 
This latter expression, however, is inconvenient just 
because 'thought' is too habitually used only for 
what belongs to mind, to consciousness, and 'ob- 
jective' used primarily for the non-mental. 

Note 1. When one says that thought — objective 
thought — is the heart and core of the world it may 
seem as if consciousness is being imputed to the 
things of nature. We feel a reluctance to regard 
the inner activity of things as thought, since we 
say : Man is distinguished from nature by his ability 
to think. We should then have to speak of nature 
as the system of unconscious thought, as of an intel- 
ligence which, as Schelling says, is 'petrified'. In- 
stead of using the expression 'thought' it is therefore 
better, in order to avoid misunderstanding, to say 
'thought-forms'. 'The logical' in accordance with 
what has been said, is to be sought as a system of 
thought-forms in general in which the opposition of 
the subjective to the objective (in its usual inter- 
pretation) disappears. This interpretation of 



Spiritualism or Idealism 355 

thought and of its forms is more exactly expressed 
when the ancients say : voiis rules the world ; or when 
we say there is reason in the world, whereby we 
mean reason is the soul of the world, dwells in it, 
is its indwelling principle, its inmost nature, its uni- 
versal aspect. A more exact illustration is the fact 
that when we speak of a particular animal we say 
'it is an animal'. 'Animal' in general can not be 
pointed out, but in every case a particular only. 
'Animal' does not exist, but is the general nature of 
particular animals, and every existing animal is 
concrete, definite, particular. But to be an animal 
(the kind in general) belongs to the individual ani- 
mal and constitutes its definite essence. If we take 
from a dog its being an animal it is impossible to 
say what it is. Things in general have a permanent, 
inner nature and an external existence. They live 
and die, arise and pass away; their essence, their 
universal aspect is the 'kind', and this is not to be 
understood merely as a 'common quality'. 

Thought, which determines the substance of ex- 
ternal things, is also the universal substance of what 
is mental. In all human contemplation there is 
thinking. Thought is the universal in all percep- 
tions, memories, and in absolutely every mental ac- 
tivity, in all volition, v/ishing, etc. All these are 
simply further specializations of thinking. When 
we understand thought in this way it appears in a 
different light from what it does when we say we 
have the capacity to think, among and alongside of 
other capacities such as sensation, perception, voli- 
tion, and the like. If we regard thought as the truly 
universal in all nature and in all mind, it extends 



356 Readings in Philosophy 

over all and is the basis of all. To this interpreta- 
tion of thought, in its objective significance (as voOs) 
we may add at once what thinking is in its sub- 
jective meaning. We say first of all, 'man thinks', 
— but at once we add that he perceives, wills, etc. 
Man is a thinker and is universal, but he is a thinker 
only in so far as the universal is the object of his 
consciousness. An animal is also potentially uni- 
versal, but the universal is as such not the ob- 
ject of its consciousness, but the individual only. 
The animal sees a single thing, for instance its food, 
a man, etc. But all these remain for it merely 
single things. Similarly sensuous feeling always 
has to do with single things (this pain, this agree- 
able flavor, etc.) . Nature does not bring vov<i to con- 
sciousness in them. Man alone becomes so 'redupli- 
cated' as to be universal foi^ the universal. This is 
the case in the first instance when man knows him- 
self as T. When I say 'V I mean myself as this abso- 
lutely definite person. Yet in fact I say nothing 
especial about myself thereby. Every one else is 
also an T, and in designating myself as T I really 
mean myself, this individual, but I use a perfectly 
general expression. T signifies mere self-conscious- 
ness in which everything individual is negated and 
annulled, the ultimate, simple and pure level of con- 
sciousness. We may say, T and 'Thought' are the 
same, or more exactly: 'V is Thought as Thinking. 
What I have in my consciousness is conscious object 
to me. T am this contentless receptacle for any- 
thing and everything, for which all things are and 
which lays up everything into itself. Every man is 
a whole world of ideas, which are buried in the 



Spiritualism or Idealism 357 

'night' of the Self. So Self is the universal in which 
abstraction is made from everything particular, in 
which however everything is included. It is there- 
fore not mere abstract universality, but universality 
which contains everything in it. In general we use 
T very carelessly; it is only philosophical reflection 
that makes it an object of attention. In the Self 
we have pure unmediated thought, an animal can- 
not say T ; — only man, because he is Thought. In 
the self is manifold internal and external content, 
and according as this content is constituted do we 
have the experience of sensation, perception, mem- 
ory, etc. But accompanying everything is the Self, 
or in everything is thought. Man is therefore 
always thinking, even when he is only perceiving; 
when he considers anything he considers it as a 
universal. He attends to a particular thing, isolates 
it, withdraws attention from everything else, takes 
it as abstract and universal, even if only formally 
universal. 

In the case of our ideas the twofold situation 
occurs: either the content is thought, but not the 
form, or contrariwise the form belongs to thought, 
but not the content. For instance, if I say 'anger', 
'rose', 'hope', these are all known to me by feeling, 
but I express this content in a general manner, in 
the form of thought. I have therein omitted much 
that is particular, and given the content only as 
universal, but the content remains sensory. On the 
contrary when I have an idea of God the content is 
really a pure thought, but the form is sensuous, as 
I find it immediately within me. In ideas then the 
content is not merely sensuous, as in visual sensa- 

24 



B58 Readings in Philosophy 

tion, but either the content is sensuous and the 
form a matter of thought, or vice versa. In the 
former case the matter is given and the form be- 
longs to thought, in the latter case thought is the 
source of the content, but through the form the 
content becomes a 'given' one, that thereby comes 
to the mind from without. 

Note 2. In logic we have to do with pure thought, 
or pure thought-forms. In thinking (in the usual 
sense) we present to ourselves something which is 
not merely pure thought, for one means thereby a 
thought whose content is an empirical one. In logic 
thoughts are viewed as having no content other than 
that which belongs to thought itself and which is 
produced only by it. Thus the thoughts are pure 
thoughts. So the mind is just pure mind, and 
therein free. For freedom is just this : in what is 
other than oneself still to find oneself, to depend up- 
on oneself, to be self-determining. In all impulses 
I begin with something outside me, with something 
of such a kind that for me it is external. In such a 
situation we speak of dependence. Freedom exists 
only where there is no 'other' for me, which is not 
myself. The natural man who is moved only by 
his impulses is not independent. However wilful 
he is, still the content of his volition and of his 
opinions is not his own, and his freedom is only a 
formal one. When I think, I give up my subjective 
particularity, sink myself in the thing, let thought 
take its own course, and I think badly when I inject 
anything of my own. 

If we, in accordance with what we have said, re- 
gard logic as the system of pure thought forms, the 



SpiHticalism or Idealism 359 

other philosophical sciences, the philosophy of na- 
ture and philosophy of mind alike appear as applied 
logic ; for it is the animating soul of them. The in- 
terest of all other sciences then is merely to recog- 
nize logical forms in the products of nature and 
mind, products which are only special manifesta- 
tions of the forms of pure thought. For example, 
if we take the syllogism (not in the meaning of the 
old formal logic, but in its true one), it is the law 
that the particular is the mean which unites the 
extremes — the universal and the singular. The 
form of the syllogism is a general form which all 
things have. All things are particulars, uniting 
themselves as universals to singulars. The im- 
potence of nature carries with it the consequence 
that it does not express logical forms in purity. 
Such an impotent expression of the syllogism is, for 
example, the magnet, which in the middle, at its in- 
difference point unites its poles, which here in spite 
of their difference are one. In physics one also 
learns the universal, — essence ; the difference is 
simply that the philosophy of nature brings to our 
consciousness the real forms of the notion in the 
things of nature, — Logic is then the animating 
spirit of all sciences. The thought-forms of logic 
are the pure spirits. They are the heart and core, 
yet at the same time what we constantly talk about, 
and which therefore appear to be something quite 
familiar. But what is thus familiar is usually the 
most unfamiliar. Thus, for example, 'being' is a 
pure thought-form ; but it never occurs to us to take 
'is' as the topic for our consideration. One usually 
believes that the Absolute must lie far away, but it 



360 Readings in Philosophy 

is just the most immediately present, which we 
carry about with us constantly and use in thinking, 
even without explicit consciousness of it. In lan- 
guage preeminently are such thought-forms crystal- 
lized. And so the instruction in grammar which is 
imparted to children has this use: it unconsciously 
calls attention to distinctions in thought. 

It is commonly said that logic has to do only with 
forms, and must derive its content from some other 
source. Logical thoughts, nevertheless are not 
'only' something as over against all other content, 
but all other content is 'only' something in contrast 
to them. They are the basis, implicit and explicit, 
of all. — A higher level of culture is necessary for 
the directing of attention to such pure forms. The 
consideration of them in and for themselves has the 
wider meaning that we derive these forms from 
thought itself and out of their own inner nature 
determine whether they are true. We do not derive 
them from without and then define them or show 
their value and validity, judging them by the form 
they take in our consciousness. For if we were to 
set out from observation and experience and say, 
for instance: we are accustomed to use the term 
'force' in such and such cases, this kind of defini- 
tion would be correct when it coincided with the 
phase of the object which is presented in our ordi- 
nary consciousness. However, in this way, a con- 
cept is not determined in and for itself, but in ac- 
cordance with a certain presupposition, which pre- 
supposition is then the criterion, the standard of 
correctness. But we do not need to use such a 
standard; but to let the living forms themselves 



Sviritualism or Idealism 361 

take their own course. The question of the truth of 
the forms of thought seems curious to the ordinary- 
consciousness. For they appear to have truth only 
in their application to given objects, and accordingly 
there would be no meaning in inquiring about their 
truth without such application. But this is just the 
question which is now at issue. In connection with 
it one must know just what is to be understood as 
truth. Usually we call truth the agreement of an 
object with our idea. We have then as a presup- 
position an object to which our idea of it must con- 
form. — In the philosophical sense, on the contrary, 
truth in general, abstractly expressed, means agree- 
ment of a content with itself. This is therefore a 
quite different interpretation of truth from that 
previously mentioned. However, the deeper (philo- 
sophic) meaning of truth is found in part even in 
customary speech. Thus one speaks for instance of 
a true friend and understands thereby one whose ac- 
tions conform to the conception of friendship; so 
also does one speak of a true work of art. Untrue 
means then the same as bad, inconsistent with it- 
self. In this sense a bad state is an untrue state. 
And the bad and the false in general consist in the 
contradiction which exists between the form or con- 
cept and the existing content of an object. Of such 
a bad object we can form a correct idea but the con- 
tent of such an idea is 'untrue' internally. Of such 
'truths' which are at the same time falsities we may 
have many in our heads. — God alone is the true 
agreement of concept and reality. All finite things 
have a falsity about them ; they have a concept and 
an existing content, but a content which does not 



362 ^ Readings in Philosophy 

conform to its concept. Therefore they must pass 
away, whereby the non-conformity of their concept 
and their existence is rendered manifest. An ani- 
mal has its concept in its 'kind' and the 'kind' frees 
itself from singularity by death. 

The consideration of truth in the sense here ex- 
plained, agreement with oneself, constitutes the real 
interest of logic. In the ordinary consciousness 
the question of the truth of thought-forms does not 
occur at all. The business of logic can then be ex- 
pressed also as follows : the forms of thought are 
considered, as to how far they are capable of con- 
taining the truth. The question then centers about 
this point: which are the forms of the infinite and 
which the forms of the finite? In the ordinary 
consciousness one raises no questions about finite 
thought-forms but lets them pass without challenge. 
But all error comes from thinking and acting in ac- 
cordance with finite forms. 

Note 3. One can know the truth in various ways 
and the modes of truth are to be regarded merely 
as forms. Certainly one can know the truth through 
experience ; but this experience is only a form. In 
the case of experience all depends upon the mental 
endowment with which one approaches the actual. 
A large mind has large experiences, and sees in the 
varied play of phenomena what is really involved. 
The Idea is at hand and real, not something far off 
and hidden. The great mind, as that of a Goethe 
for example, as it looks into nature or history has 
great experiences, sees the rational and expresses 
it. It is furthermore true that one can know the 
truth through reflection, and one defines it by means 



Spmtualism or Idealism 363 

of the relations of thought. The true in and for 
itself is, however, not present in its own proper 
form in either of these two modes. The most per- 
fect mode of knowledge is that in the pure form of 
thought. Man here acts in perfect freedom. That 
the form of thought is the absolute, and that the 
truth is manifest in it as it is in and for itself, — 
this is the assertion of philosophy in general. Proof 
of this means in the first place: that those other 
forms of knowing are shown to be finite forms. The 
lofty skepticism of the ancients achieved this when 
it showed of all those forms that they contained 
contradictions within themselves. When this skep- 
ticism attacks the forms of Reason, it injects some- 
thing finite into them first in order thereby to lay 
hold upon them. All the forms of finite thought 
will appear in the course of logical development, 
and, too, just as they arise in accordance with a 
necessary law. Here (in this introduction) they 
must be dealt with at first in an unscientific man- 
ner as something simply given. In the logical 
treatise proper not only the negative side of these 
forms but also the positive will be shown. 

When one compares the various forms of knowl- 
edge with one another the first, that of immediate 
acquaintance, may easily appear the most appropri- 
ate, the finest and highest. Under this form falls 
all that in respect to moral value is called innocence, 
religious feeling, simple trust, love, loyalty, natural 
faith. The other two forms, first that of reflective 
knowledge, and then also the philosophical, emerge 
from out of that simple, natural unity. In so far 
as they have this in comi^on with each other, the 



364 Readings in Philosophy 

attitude of desiring to grasp truth through thought 
may easily appear a bit of arrogance on the part 
of man, who proposes to know the truth by means 
of his own powers. As the starting point of all 
mental disunion, this may certainly be viewed as 
the source of all evil and wickedness, and as the 
original sin. And it would seem accordingly that 
thinking and knowing ought to be given up, in order 
to achieve a return and atonement. So far as the 
relinquishing of this native unity is concerned this 
remarkable disunion of the mind within itself has 
from ancient times been an object of the conscious- 
ness of nations. In the natural state such an inner 
division does not occur, and natural objects do noth- 
ing wicked. An old idea of the origin and conse- 
quences of that disunion is given us in the Mosaic 
myth of the fall of man. The content of this story 
forms the basis of an essential religious doctrine, the 
doctrine of the natural sinfulness of man and the 
necessity of some help for it. It seems appropriate 
to consider the story of the fall of man at the begin- 
ning of Logic, since logic has to do with knowledge 
and in this story also it is a question of knowledge, 
its origin and meaning. Philosophy must not 
shrink from the presence of religion and refuse to 
hold its place as if it had to be satisfied if religion 
merely tolerated it. But on the other hand also 
the view must be rejected that such stories and 
religious representations are obsolete; for they have 
the veneration of thousands of years among peoples. 
Now if we look more carefully into the story of 
the fall of man we find expressed in it as was re- 
marked before, the universal relation of knowledge 



Spiritualism or Idealism 365 

to the spiritual life. The spiritual life in its sim- 
plicity appears at first as innocence and simple trust. 
But it lies in the very nature of spirit to transcend 
this simple state; for the spiritual life is distin- 
guished from the natural, and, more precisely — 
from animal life, — by the fact that it does not re- 
main on the level of unconsciousness but becomes 
self-conscious. , But then this state of disunion is 
likewise to be transcended and the spirit must of 
itself return to unity. This unity is then a spiritual 
one, and the basis of that return lies in thought it- 
self. What inflicts the wound also heals it. — It 
says in our story that Adam and Eve, the first 
human beings, — humanity in general — were in a 
garden in which were a tree of life and a tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil. Of God it is said that 
he had forbidden man's eating of the fruit of the 
latter tree. Of the tree of life at this point there 
is no further mention. Herein is expressed the 
thought, then, that man was not to attain to knowl- 
edge but was to remain in the state of innocence. 
Among other peoples also, of deep insight, we 
find the idea that the first condition of man was a 
condition of innocence and inner harmony. In this 
there is so much of truth — that at any rate in the 
disunion in which we find all humanity involved we 
cannot acquiesce. On the contrary it is not correct 
that the elemental natural simplicity is the right 
condition. Mind is not merely a simple thing; it 
contains essentially in it the aspect of mediation. 
Childlike innocence of course has something charm- 
ing and touching about it, but only in so far as it 
reminds us of that which is to be revealed through 



366 Readings in Philosophy 

the spirit. That sort of simplicity which we see in 
children as a natural thing must be regained as the 
result of the labor and formative process of mind. 
— Christ says : Except ye become as children, etc. 
He does not thereby say that we should remain chil- 
dren. — In our Mosaic story we find, further, that 
the occasion of their losing their simplicity came to 
man through external solicitation (through the ser- 
pent.) But in fact the entrance into opposition, the 
awakening of consciousness, lies in man himself, 
and this story is repeated in the life of every man. 
The serpent declares divinity to consist in knowing 
what is good and what is evil ; and it is this knowl- 
edge, in fact, which has fallen to the share of man 
in that he has broken with the unity of his simple 
existence, that he has partaken of the forbidden 
fruit. The first indication of awakening conscious- 
ness was that the persons observed that they were 
naked. This is a very naive and elemental touch. 
In the sense of shame then lies the departure of man 
from his natural and sensuous existence. Animals, 
not progressing to the point of this departure, are 
devoid of the sense of shame. In the human sense 
of shame, the mental and moral origin of clothing 
is to be found; the purely physical need is a mere 
secondary consideration. — Then follows the so- 
called curse which God placed upon men. The 
thought emphasized in it bears chiefly upon the op- 
position of man to nature. Man must labor in the 
sweat of his brow, and woman bear offspring in 
pain. So far as -work is concerned in this connec- 
tion, it is at once the result of the estrangement 
and also the means of overcoming it. The animal 



Spiritualism or Idealism 367 

finds immediately at hand what it needs for the 
satisfaction of its wants; man on the contrary in 
his relation to the means of satisfying his needs is 
dealing with what has been wrought out and formed 
by himself. So in these external things man is 
dealing with himself. — The story is not yet closed 
even with the banishment from paradise. It con- 
tinues : God said, Behold, Adam has become as one 
of us, for he knows good and evil. — Knowledge is 
here delineated as divine, not, as before, as what 
should not be. Herein lies the refutation of the 
assertion that philosophy belongs only to the finite 
level of mind. Philosophy is knowledge, and through 
knowledge is realized the original call to man to be 
an image of God. And when it says further^ God 
drove man out of the Garden of Eden that he might 
;not also eat of the tree of life, the thought is ex- 
pressed that man on the side of his natural being is 
indeed finite and mortal, but in knowledge infinite. 
It is a well-known doctrine of the church that man 
is by nature evil, and this evil nature is characterized 
as original sin. But in connection with it the super- 
ficial idea that original sin has its basis in a chance 
deed of the first man is to be abandoned. In reality 
it lies in the very notion of mind that man is evil 
by nature, and one must not imagine that this can 
be otherwise. So far as man is a product of nature 
and conducts himself as such his condition is one 
that ought not to be. Mind ought to be free and be 
what it is through its own choice. Nature is for 
man merely a preliminary state which he must re- 
construct. Opposed to the profound ecclesiastical 
doctrine of original sin stands the theory of modern 



368 Readings in Philosophy 

enlightenment that man is good by nature and must 
remain true to this condition. The emergence of 
man from out of his natural state is his differentia- 
tion as a conscious being from the external world. 
This state of differentiation characteristic of the 
notion of mind is however not one in which man 
ought to remain. Into this condition of disruption 
all finite thought and volition fall. Man constructs 
his purposes from out of his own being and draws 
from himself the material of his own action. So 
long as he presses these purposes to the utmost ex- 
treme, takes cognizance of himself alone and formu- 
lates his own private volitions to the exclusion of 
what is general, he is evil ; and this evil is his sub- 
jectivity. At first glance we have here two kinds 
of evil ; but in reality they are one. Man, in so far 
as he is a spirit is not a 'natural creature'. So far 
as he conducts himself as such a natural creature 
and follows the objects of sensual desire, he wilfully 
tries to be one. Natural evil in man is therefore 
not like the natural existence of animals. 'Natural- 
ness' has then this more limited meaning, that the 
natural man is isolated as such, for nature every- 
where lies under the bonds of isolation. In so far 
as man wills a natural state, so far does he will 
isolation. In opposition to this type of action which 
is characteristic of natural isolation — from impulse 
and inclination — there arises, to be sure, law or 
general regulation. This law may be an external 
power or have the form of divine authority. Man 
is in servitude to the law so long as he remains in 
his natural state. Among his inclinations and feel- 
ings man indeed has also social, benevolent inclina- 



Spiritualism or Idealism 369 

tions, sympathy, love, etc., -which reach out beyond 
selfish isolation. But so long as these inclinations 
are unreflective what is potentially universal in them 
is still in form subjective; self-interest and chance 
have ever full play here. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE IDENTITY OR DOUBLE ASPECT THEORY 

A. The Order of Ideas the Same as of Things. 

The theorem here given from Spinoza's Ethics is 
a classic expression of an older form of the doctrine, 
and one which has been very influential in the his- 
tory of thought : 

PROPOSITION VII 

The^ order and connection of ideas is the same as 
the order and connection of things. 

DEMONSTRATION 

This is evident from axiom 4, part 1.* For the 
idea of any thing that is caused depends upon the 
knowledge of the cause of which it is the effect. 

COROLLARY 

Hence it follows, that God's power of Thinking 
is equal to his power of actual doing. That is, what- 
ever follows objectively from the infinite nature of 
God, follows in its entirety from the idea of God 
and in the same order and sequence in the mind of 
God. 



^Spinoza, B., Ethics, Part II, Proposition VII; translated 
from the text of Van Vloten and liand. 

* The knowledge of an effect depends upon, and involves, 
a knowledge of the cause. 

(370) 



The Identity or Double Aspect Theory 371 

SCHOLIUM 

Here, before we proceed further, we must re- 
call to mind what we showed above, namely that 
that whatever can be perceived by the infinite 
intellect as constituting the essence of substance be- 
longs wholly to one substance only, and consequently 
that thinking substance and extended substance are 
one and the same substance, which is known now 
under the one, now under the other attribute. Thus 
also the mode of extension, and the idea of that mode 
are one and the same thing, manifested under two 
modes ; which certain of the Hebrews seem to have 
seen hazily as it were, when they maintain that God, 
the intellect of God, and things thought by Him, 
are all one and the same. For example, a circle 
existing in nature, and the idea of a circle existing, 
which is also in God, are one and the same thing, 
being revealed through different attributes ; and for 
this reason if we conceive nature under the attribute 
of extension or under the attribute of thought, or 
under any other, we shall find that one and the 
same order, or one and the same connection of 
causes, — that is, the same things, — follow in turn. 
And I had no other reason for saying that God is 
the cause of an idea, for example of a circle, in so far 
as He is a thinking thing only, and of a circle in so 
far as it is an extended thing, except that tlie 
formal existence of the idea of a circle can be per- 
ceived only through another mode of thinking as 
the proximate cause, and that again through another, 
and so to infinity; so that so long as things are 
considered as modes of thought we ought to ac- 
count for the order of all nature, or the connection 



372 Readings in Philosophy 

of causes, through the attribute of thought alone; 
and in so far as they are considered as modes of 
extension the order even of all nature ought to be 
accounted for through the attribute of extension 
alone ; and I hold the same* view regarding the other 
attributes. Wherefore, of things as they are in 
themselves, God is the true cause, insofar' as he is 
infinite in attributes ; nor can I explain this more 
clearly at present. 

B. Ideas are Things in Special Relations. 

This is a form which the theory has taken in 
recent years and is very important m the so-called 
Neo-realistic doctrines : 

Experience,^ I believe, has no such inner duplicity; 
and the separation of it into consciousness and con- 
tent comes, not by way of subtraction, but by tvay 
of addition — the addition, to a given concrete piece 
of it, of other sets of experiences, in connection 
with which severally its use or function may be of 
two different kinds. The paint will also serve here 
as an illustration. In a pot in a paint shop, along 
with other paints, it serves in its entirety as so much 
saleable matter. Spread on a canvas, with other 
paints around it, it represents, on the contrary, a 
feature in a picture and performs a spiritual func- 
tion. Just so, I maintain, does a given undivided 
portion of experience, taken in one context of as- 



' James, W., Essays in Radical Empiricism, from the essay 
"Does Consciousness Exist?", pages 9-16; Longmans, Green 
and Company, 1912; reprinted by permission of the publish- 



The Identity or Double Aspect Theory 373 

sociates, play the part of a knower,. of a state of 
mind, of 'consciousness' ; while in a different context 
the same undivided bit of experience plays the part 
of a thing known, of an objective 'content'. In a 
word, in one group it figures as a thought, in an- 
other group as a thing. And, since it can figure 
in both groups simultaneously we have every right 
to speak of it as subjective and objective both at 
once. The dualism connoted by such double-bar- 
relled terms as 'experience', 'phenomenon', 'datum', 
'Vorfindimg' — terms which, in philosophy at any 
rate, tend more and more to replace the single-bar- 
relled terms of 'thought' and 'thing' — that dualism, 
I say, is still preserved in this account, but reinter- 
preted, so that, instead of being mysterious and 
elusive, it becomes verifiable and concrete. It is an 
affair of relations, it falls outside, not inside, the 
single experience considered, and can always be 
particularized and defined. 

The entering wedge for this more concrete way 
of understanding the dualism was fashioned by 
Locke when he made the word 'idea' stand indiffer- 
ently for thing and thought, and by Berkeley when 
he said that what common sense means by realities 
is exactly what the philosopher means by ideas. 
Neither Locke nor Berkeley thought his truth out 
into perfect clearness, but it seems to me that the 
conception I am defending does little more than 
consistently carry out the 'pragmatic' method which 
they were the first to use. 

If the reader will take his own experiences, he 
will see what I mean. Let him begin with a per- 
ceptual experience, the 'presentation', so called, of a 

25 



374 Readings in Philosophy 

physical object, his actual field of vision, the room 
he sits in, with the book he is reading as its centre ; 
and let him for the present treat this complex ob- 
ject in the common sense way as being 'really' what 
it seems to be, a collection of physical things cut 
out from an environing world of other physical 
things with which these physical things have ac- 
tual or potential relations. Now at the same time 
it is just those self -same things which his mind, as 
we say, perceives ; and the whole philosophy of per- 
ception from Democritus's time downwards has been 
just one long wrangle over the paradox that what is 
evidently one reality should be in two places at 
once, both in outer space and in a person's mind. 
'Representative' theories of perception avoid the 
logical paradox, but on the other hand they violate 
the reader's sense of life, which knows no interven- 
ing mental image but seems to see the room and 
the book immediately just as they physically exist. 

The puzzle of how the one identical room can be 
in two places is at bottom just the puzzle of how 
one identical point can be on 'two lines. It can, if 
it be situated at their intersection ; and similarly, if 
the 'pure experience' of the room were a place of 
intersection of two processes, which connected it 
with different groups of associates respectively, it 
could be counted twice over, as belonging to either 
group, and spoken of loosely as existing in two 
places, although it would remain all the time a 
numerically single thing. 

Well, the experience is a member of diverse pro- 
cesses that can be followed away from it along en- 
tirely different lines. The one self-identical thing 



The Identity or Double Aspect Theory 375 

has so many relations to the rest of experience that 
you can take it in disparate system of association, 
and treat it as belonging with opposite contexts. 
In one of these contexts it is your 'field of con- 
sciousness' ; in another it is 'the room in which you 
sit', and it enters both contexts in its wholeness, giv- 
ing no pretext for being said to attach itself to con- 
sciousness by one of its parts or aspects, and to outer 
reality by another. What are the two processes, 
now, into which the room-experience simultaneously 
enters in this way? 

One of them is the reader's personal biography, 
the other is the history of the house of which the 
room is a part. The presentation, the experience, 
the that in short (for until we have decided what 
it is it must be a mere that) is the last term of a 
train of sensations, emotions, decisions, movements, 
classifications, expectations, etc., ending in the pres- 
ent, and the first term of a series of similar 'inner' 
operations extending into the future, on the reader's 
part. On the other hand, the very same that is the 
terminus ad queyn of a lot of previous physical 
operations, carpentering, papering, furnistiing, 
warming, etc., and the termimis a quo of a lot of 
future ones, in which it will be concerned when 
undergoing the destiny of a physical room. The 
physical and the mental operations form curiously 
incompatible groups. As a room, the experience 
has occupied that spot and had that environment 
for thirty years. As your field of consciousness it 
may never have existed until now. As a room, at- 
tention will go on to discover endless new details 
in it. As your mental state merely, few new ones 



376 Readings in Philosophy 

will emerge under attention's eye. As a room, it 
will take an earthquake, or a gang of men, and in 
any case a certain amount of time, to destroy it. As 
your subjective state, the closing of your eyes, or any 
instantaneous play of your fancy will suffice. In 
the real world fire will consume it. In your mind, 
you can let fire play over it without effect. As an 
outer object, you must pay so much a month to in- 
habit it. As an inner content, you may occupy it 
for any length of time rent-free. If, in short, you 
follow it in the mental direction, taking it along 
with events of personal biography solely, all sorts of 
things are true of it which are false, and false of 
it which are true if you treat it as a real thing ex- 
perienced, follow it in the physical direction, and 
relate it to associates in the outer world. 

Ill 

So far, all seems plain sailing, but my thesis will 
probably grow less plausible to the reader when I 
pass from percepts to concepts, or from the case 
of things presented to that of things remote. I be- 
lieve, nevertheless, that here also the same law holds 
good. If we take conceptual manifolds, or mem- 
ories, or fancies, they also are in their first inten- 
tion mere bits of pure experience, and, as such, are 
single thats which act in one context as objects, and 
in another context figure as mental states. By 
taking them in their first intention, I mean ignor- 
ing their relation to possible perceptual experiences 
with which they may be connected, which they may 
lead to and terminate in, and which then they may 



The Identity or Double Asjject Theory Zll 

be supposed to 'represent'. Taking them in this 
way first, we confine the problem to a world merely 
'thought-of and not directly felt or seen. This 
world, just like the world of percepts, comes to us 
at first as a chaos of experiences, but lines of order 
soon get traced. We find that any bit of it which 
we may cut out as an example is connected with 
distinct groups of associates, just as our perceptual 
experiences are, that these associates link them- 
selves with it by different relations, and that one 
forms the inner history of a person, while the other 
acts as an impersonal 'objective' world, either spatial 
and temporal, or else merely logical or mathemati- 
cal, or otherwise 'ideal'. 



CHAPTER XX 

SINGULARISM AND PLURALISM 

A. God as Substance. 
The first part of Spinoza's development of his 
thesis is to be seen in the following selection, which 
shows also his method of presentation : 

OP GOD 

Definitions 

1. Byi caiise of itself I mean that whose essence 
involves existence; or, in other words, that whose 
nature cannot be conceived except as existing. 

2. A thing is said to be finite in its kind when it 
can be limited by another of the same nature. For 
example, a body is called finite because we always 
conceive another still greater. In the same way 
one thought is limited by another. But a body can- 
not be limited by a thought, nor a thought by a 
body. 

-3. By substance I mean that which is itself, and 
is conceived by means of itself : that is, that the con- 
ception of which does not need to be formed from 
the conception of any other thing. 



^ G. S. Fullerton, The Philosophy of Spinoza, pages 25-34 ; 
Henry Holt and Company, 1894; reprinted by permission of 
the publishers. 

(378) 



Singularism and Pluralism 379 

4. By attribute I mean that which the under- 
standing perceives as constituting the essence of 
substance. 

5. By mode I mean the modifications of sub- 
stance: in other words, that which is in and is con- 
ceived by means of something else. 

6. By God I mean a being absolutely infinite: 
that is, a substance consisting of an infinity of at- 
tributes, each one of which expresses an eternal and 
infinite essence. 

Explanation. — I say absolutely infinite, not in- 
finite in its kind; for we can deny an infinity of 
attributes of anjrthing that is infinite only in its 
kind. But to the essence of that which is absolutely 
infinite belongs everything that expresses essence 
and involves no negation. 

7. A thing will be called free that exists by the 
sole necessity of its nature, and is determined to 
action by itself alone : that, on the other hand, which 
is determined by something else to exist and to act 
in a definite and determinate way will be called 
necessary, or rather coerced. 

8. By eternity I mean existence itself in so far as 
it is conceived as following necessarily from the mere 
definition of an eternal thing. 

Explanation. For such existence, like the essence 
of a thing, is conceived as an eternal truth; it can- 
not, therefore, be explained by duration or time, 
even though duration be conceived as without begin- 
ning and without end. 



380 Readings in Philosophy 

Axioms 

1. Everything that is, is either in itself or in 
something else. 

2. That which cannot be conceived by means of 
something else must be conceived by means of it- 
self. 

3. Granted a determinate cause, an effect neces- 
sarily follows ; conversely, if there be no determinate 
cause it is impossible for an effect to follow. 

4. Knowledge of an effect depends upon and 
involves knowledge of its cause. 

5. Things which have nothing in common can- 
not be comprehended by means of each other; that 
is, the conception of the one does not involve the 
conception of the other. 

6. A true idea must agree with its object. 

7. If a thing can be conceived as non-existent, its 
essence does not involve existence. 

Proposition 1. Substance is by nature prior to 
its modifications. 

Proof. — This is evident from definitions 3 and 5. 

Proposition 2. Two substances with different 
attributes have nothing in common. 

Proof. — This, too, is evident from definition 3. 
Each must be in itself and be conceived by means of 
itself; that is, the conception of the one does not 
involve the conception of the other. 

Proposition 3. When things have nothing in 
common, the one cannot be the cause of the other. 

Proof. — If they have nothing in common, then 
(axiom 5) they cannot be comprehended by means 
of one another, and, hence (axiom 4), the one can- 
not be the cause of the other. Q. E. D". 



Singtdarism and Pluralism 381 

Proposition 4. Tiuo or more distinct things are 
distinguished from each other either by a difference 
in the attributes of the substances, or by a difference 
in their modifications. 

Proof. — Everything that is, is either in itself or 
in something else {axiom 1) , that is {defs. 3 and 5) , 
outside of the understanding there is nothing save 
substances and their modifications. There is, there- 
fore, outside of the understanding, nothing by means 
of which several things can be distinguished from 
one another, except substances, or, which is the 
same thing {def. 4) , their attributes and their modi- 
fications. Q. E. D. 

Proposition 5. There can not be in the universe 
two or more substances of the same nature, that is, 
ivith the same attribute. 

Proof. — Were there several distinct substances, 
they would have to be distinguished from one an- 
other either by a difference in attributes or by a 
difference in modifications {by the preceding 'propo- 
sition) . If merely by a difference in attributes, it 
will be admitted there can not be m.ore than one with 
the same attribute. If, on the other hand, one is to 
be distinguished from another by a difference in 
modifications, then, since a substance is by nature 
prior to its modifications {Prop. 1) , when we lay 
aside its modifications, and consider it in itself, that 
is, {def. 3 and axiom 6), consider it as it is, we can- 
not conceive it. as distinguished from another sub- 
stance. In other words {by the preceding proposi- 
tion) , there cannot be several substances, but only 
one. Q. E. D. 



382 Readings in Philosophy 

Proposition 6. One substance cannot he pro- 
choced by another substance. 

Proof. — There cannot be in the universe two 
substances with the same attribute (by the preced- 
ing pi^oposition) , that is {Prop. 2), substances that 
have something in common. Therefore (3), the 
one cannot be the cause of the other, or, in other 
words, the one cannot be produced by the other. 
Q. E. D. 

Coi'ollary. — Hence it follows that a substance 
cannot be produced by any other thing. For there 
is nothing in the universe except substances and 
their modifications, as is evident from axiom 1 and 
defs. 3 and 5. But a substance cannot be produced 
by a substance {by the preceding proposition). 
Hence a substance cannot be produced by any other 
thing whatever. Q. E. D. 

Another proof. — This is proved even more 
readily by a reductio ad ahsurdum. For if a sub- 
stance could be produced by any other thing, the 
knowledge of it would have to depend on a knowl- 
edge of its cause {axiom 4) ; hence {def. 3) it would 
not be a substance. 

Proposition 7. It belongs to the nature of a 
substance to exist. 

Proof. — A substance cannot be produced by any 
other thing (by the corollary to the preceding 
proposition) ; it must, therefore, be its own cause, 
that is {def. 1) , its essence necessarily involves ex- 
istence, or, in other words, it belongs to its nature 
to exist. Q. E. D. 

Proposition 8. Every substance is necessarily 
infinite. 



Singularism and Pluralism 383 

Proof. — There does not exist more than one sub- 
stance with a given attribute (5), and it belongs to 
the nature of that one to exist (7) . It must, there- 
fore, belong to its nature to exist either as finite or 
as infinite. But not as finite. For (clef. 2) it 
would have to be limited by another of the same 
nature, and this, also, would necessarily have to 
exist. (7). There would, then, be two substances 
with the same attribute, which is absurd (5). It 
therefore exists as infinite. Q. E. D. 

Scholium 1. — Since finitude is in fact a partial 
negation, and infinitude an absolute affirmation of 
the existence of any nature, it follows from prop. 
7 alone that every substance must be infinite. 

SchoU'um 2. — No doubt it is difficult for all those 
who judge of things confusedly and are not accus- 
tomed to come to a knowledge of them by means 
of their first causes, to comprehend the proof of 
prop. 7 ; for they make no distinction between the 
modifications of substances and the substances 
themselves, nor do they know how things are pro- 
duced. Hence they ascribe to substances the 
origin they see proper to natural objects. For 
those who are ignorant of the true causes of things 
confuse all things, and without repugnance fancy 
trees talking as well as men, and that men are 
formed from stones as well as from seed, and they 
imagine that any kind of thing can be changed into 
any other. In the same way those who confuse the 
divine nature with the human easily ascribe to God 
human emotions, especially as long as they are fur- 
ther ignorant how the emotions are produced in the 
mind. But if men would consider attentively the 



384 • Readings in Philosophy 

nature of substance, they would never doubt the 
truth of prop. 7; nay, rather they would all accept 
this proposition as an axiom and class it among the 
common notions. For by substance they would 
mean that which is in itself and is conceived by 
means of itself; in other words, that the knowledge 
of which does not presuppose the knowledge of any 
other thing. By modification, on the other hand, 
they would mean that which is in something else, 
and whose conception is formed from the conception 
of the thing in which it is. For this reason we can 
have true ideas of non-existent modifications, since, 
although they do not actually exist outside of the 
mind, yet their essence is included in something else 
in such a way that they can be conceived by that. 
But since substances are conceived by means of 
themselves, their truth can have no being outside 
of the mind except in themselves. Hence, should 
anyone say that he has a clear and distinct, that is, a 
true idea of a substance, and yet doubts whether 
such a substance exists, it would be absolutely the 
same as saying that he has a true idea and yet is not 
certain that it is not false ! This will be plain to any- 
one who gives the matter enough attention. Or if one 
maintains that a substance is created, he thereby 
maintains that a false idea has been made true, than 
which really nothing more absurd can be conceived. 
We are, therefore, forced to confess that the exist- 
ence of a substance is an eternal truth, just as is 
its essence. Hence we are able to prove in another 
way that there cannot be more than one substance 
with a given nature, and I have thought it worth 
while to set forth the proof here. But to do this 



Singularism and Pluralism 385 

in a methodical way, I must note — First, that the 
true definition of a thing neither involves nor ex- 
presses anything except the nature of the thing de- 
fined. Whence it follows in the second place, that 
no definition either involves or expresses a certain 
definite number of individuals, seeing that it ex- 
presses nothing but the nature of the thing defined. 
For example, the definition of the triangle ex- 
presses nothing but just the nature of the triangle, 
and not a certain definite number of triangles. 
I must note in the third place that every existing 
thing necessarily has some definite cause, by 
reason of which it exists. And finally in the 
fourth place that this cause, by reason of which any- 
thing exists, must either be contained in the very 
nature and definition of the existing thing {for the 
reason, of course, that it belongs to the nature of 
such a thing to exist), or it must be outside of it. 
Granted these points, it follows that if there exist in 
the world some definite number of individuals, there 
must necessarily be a cause why those individuals, 
and neither more nor less, exist. If, for example, 
there exist in the universe twenty men (I will sup- 
pose, to make the matter clearer, that they exist at 
the same time, and that no others have ever existed 
before) , it will not be a sufficient explanation of the 
existence of the twenty men to show the cause of 
human nature in the abstract ; but it will be further 
necessary to show the cause why twenty exist, and 
not more nor less; for {by point third) there must 
necessarily be a cause for the existence of each one. 
But this cause {by point second and third) cannot 



386 Readings in Philosophy 

be contained in human nature itself, since the true 
definition of man does not involve the number 
twenty. Hence {hy point fourth) the cause why 
these twenty men exist, and, consequently, why each 
one exists, must necessarily be outside of each one. 
Therefore, the conclusion is unavoidable that every- 
thing of such a nature, that several individuals 
with that nature can exist, must necessarily have 
an external cause to bring about their existence. 
Now since it belongs to the nature of a substance to 
exist {hy ivhat I have just shoivn in this scholium), 
its definition must involve necessary existence, and 
hence its existence must be inferred from its mere 
definition. But from its definition (as has just 
been py^oved from poiiits second and third) the ex- 
istence of several substances cannot be inferred. 
From it, therefore, it follows necessarily that but 
one of a given nature exists, as was maintained. 

Proposition 9. The more reality or being any- 
thing has, the greater the number of its attributes. 

Proof. — This is evident from def . 4. 

Proposition 10. Each attribute of a substance 
must be conceived by means of itself. 

Proof. — Attribute is that which the understand- 
ing perceives as constituting the essence of sub- 
stance {def. 4) ; therefore {def. 3) it must be con- 
ceived by means of itself. Q. E. D. 

Scholium. — Hence it is evident that although two 
attributes are conceived as really distinct — that is, 
the one is conceived without help from the other — 
yet we cannot thence infer that they constitute two 



Singularism and Pluralism 387 

beings, or, in other words, two different substances. 
For it is of the nature of a substance that each "of 
its attributes is conceived by means of itself ; seeing 
that all the attributes it has have always been in it 
simultaneously, nor has it been possible for one to 
be produced by another, but each one expresses the 
reality, that is, the being of the substance. It is, 
therefore, far from absurd to ascribe several at- 
tributes to one substance ; nay, nothing in the world 
is clearer than that every being must be conceived 
under some attribute, and that the more reality or 
being it has, the more attributes has it that express 
both necessity, that is, eternity, and infinity. Hence 
nothing can be clearer than that an absolutely in- 
finite being must necessarily, be defined (as in clef. 
6), as a being consisting of an infinity of attributes, 
each one of which expresses a definite eternal and 
infinite essence. Should one here ask, by what 
mark, then, can we distinguish different substances ? 
let him read the propositions that follow, which 
show that there exists in the universe but a single 
substance, and that this is absolutely infinite. Hence 
such a mark would be sought in vain. 

Proposition 11. God, that is, a substance con- 
sisting of an infinity of attributes, each »ne of ivhich 
expresses an eternal and infinite essence, necessarily 
exists. 

Proof. — If you deny it, conceive if you can that 
God does not exist. Then (axiom 7) his essence 
does not involve existence. But this (7) is absurd. 
Therefore God necessarily exists. Q. E. D. 





Readings in Philosophy 

'J^B. The Absolute. 

<| The following is a typical passage from Hegel's 

^ "Phenomenology of Mind" suggesting his view of 

, the Absolute: 
d 

^ Accordmg^ to my view, which can justify itself 
only through the presentation of the whole system, 
everything depends upon grasping and describing 
the True not merely as Substance, but also as Sub- 
ject. It is to be noted at once that Substantiality 
I 4 ^ includes the Universal or the Immediate of knowl- 
' ^ edge itself, as well as that which is Being or Im- 

P "'•', :. ^ mediacy for knowledge. If the conception of God 
I I ^ ^ as Substance shocked the age in which this char- 
f 4 ^ acterization was expressed, the reason therefor lay 
T^*SLs partly in the instinctive feeling that self-conscious- 
1 ^ ^ ness was therein swallowed up, not preserved; but 
NX I ^ the contrary view which holds to thinking as mere 
^ (|v^ thinking. Universality as such, in part involves the 
r? ,w^^ same simple or undifferentiated, unmoved Substan- 
tiality. And if in the third place Thought unites the 
:, being of Substance with itself and conceives im- 

^ ■ % mediacy or intuition as thought, it is a question 

whether this intellectual contemplation does not fall 
back into inert simplicity, and present Reality itself 
in an unreal manner. 

Living Substance is furthermore that Being which 

^Ss Subject in Truth, or — what amounts to the same 

^ thing, — is real in Truth, only in so far as it is the 

movement of positing itself, or the jnediation of its 

own changes through itself. As subject it is pure, 





^ Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind, 
from the edition of 1832. 



pp. 14-25 ; translated 



Singularism and Pluralism 389 

simple negativity, and thereby the sundering of the 
simple, or the duplication into opposites; and it is 
again the negation of this inert diversity and of this 
opposition. Only this self-reinstating identity or 
the reflection from another into itself — not an 
original unity as such, nor an immediate unity, as 
such, — is the Truth. It is the process of develop- 
ing itself, the circle which presupposes its end as 
its goal, takes it as its starting point, and is real 
only through its development and in its final comple- 
tion. 

The life of God and the divine knowledge may be 
said to be a disporting of love with itself. This 
idea indeed sinks to edification and even to silliness 
if the seriousness, the pain, the patience and labor 
of the process of negation is overlooked. In itself 
that life is indeed undisturbed identity and unity 
with itself, in which there is no distress over differ- 
ence and estrangement, nor over the overcoming of 
this estrangement. But this 'in itself is abstract 
universality in which no account is taken of its dis- 
position to be for itself, and thereby none whatever 
of the self-movement of Form. If form is described 
as identical with Essence then it is a misapprehen- 
sion to hold that knowledge can be satisfied with the 
thing itself or its essence but do without the form, 
— that the absolute principle or the absolute vision 
makes the completion of the first or the development 
of the second superfluous. Just because the form 
is as essential to the essence as the essence is to it, 
it is not to be understood and expressed as mere 
essence, that is, as immediate substance, or as pure 
self-contemplation on the part of the Divine, but 

26 



390 Readings in Philoso2jhy 

equally as form and with all the richness of de- 
veloped form. Thereby only will it be apprehended 
and expressed in its actuality. 

The True is the Whole. The whole, however, is 
only the Essence perfecting itself through its de- 
velopment. It must be said of the Absolute that it 
is essentially result, that only at the end is it what 
it is in truth. And herein consists its real nature 
— in being the Actual, Subject, or Self-developing 
Principle. However paradoxical it may seem that 
the Absolute is to be conceived as essentially result 
a little reflection corrects this appearance of contra- 
diction. The origin, principle, or absolute, as it is 
at first and immediately expressed is only the uni- 
versal. Just as when I say, 'all animals', this ex- 
pression cannot serve as a science of zoology, so it 
is evident that the words, 'God', 'Absolute', 'Eternal', 
etc., do not express all that is included under them. 
Such words really express only the intuition as im- 
mediate. What is more than such a word, even the 
mere transition to a sentence, contains a change to 
an Other which must be brought back, — is a proc- 
ess of mediation. This is abhorred, however, as if 
absolute knowledge is given up through the very fact 
that more is made of it than merely that it is abso- 
lutely nothing and does not exist in the Absolute. 

This horror comes, however, in fact from the lack 
of acquaintance with the nature of mediation and 
of absolute knowledge itself. For mediation is noth- 
ing else than living Identity, or it is reflection into 
itself, the process of Self's becoming object for it- 
self, pure negativity, or — lowered to its purely ab- 
stract level — simple Becoming. The Ego or Be- 



Singularism and Pluralism 391 

coming in general, this mediation in its simplicity, 
is Immediacy coming into being, and is the Imme- 
date itself. It is therefore a misconstruction of 
reason to exclude reflection from the truth and not 
to conceive it as a positive aspect of the Absolute. 
It is what brings the true to its full result, and at 
the same time overcomes the opposition between it 
and its own process of becoming; for this process 
is also simple and not different from the form of 
truth, in that in the result it appears as simple. 
Rather it is just this return into simplicity. Al- 
though the embryo is in essence a man yet it is not 
man perfected; in the perfected state he is the full 
formed reason which has brought itself to what it 
was potentially. This alone is its actuality. But 
this result is itself simple immediacy. For it is 
self-conscious freedom which rests in itself, has not 
placed its inner opposition to one side, and let it lie 
there, but has become reconciled to it. 

What we have said can be expressed thus : reason 
is purposive activity. The exalting of so-called Na- 
ture over misunderstood thought, and above all the 
proscription of outer purposiveness has brought the 
conception of purpose into general discredit. But 
in line with Aristotle's definition of nature, as pur- 
posive, we assert that the goal is the immediate, re- 
posing, unmoved, itself the source of motion; as 
such it is subject. Its power to move, abstractly 
taken, is its self-dependent being, or pure negativity. 
The end is the same as the beginning only for the 
reason that the beginning is also goal ; — or the 
actual is the same as its concept only for the rea- 
son that the immediate as goal contains the self or 



392 Readings in Philosophy 

pure actuality in it. The perfected end or the actual 
real is movement and process of becoming. But 
just this restlessness is the nature of the self; and 
it is identical with that immediacy and simplicity 
of the beginning because it is the result, that which 
has returned to itself, — but that which has re- 
turned to itself, however, is the self, and the self 
is identity and simplicity. 

The need of representing the Absolute as subject 
availed itself of the assertion: God is the Eternal, 
or the Moral World-order, or Love, etc. In such 
assertions the truth is only baldly posited as subject, 
not presented as the movement of self-reflection. In 
a sentence of this kind one begins with the word 
'God'. This by itself is a meaningless sound, a mere 
name; an added predicate is what tells what he is 
and constitutes its consummation and meaning; the 
empty beginning becomes. actualized knowledge only 
in this ending. So far we see no reason why one 
does not speak merely of the eternal, the moral 
world-order, etc., or as the ancients did, of pure 
concepts : 'being', 'the one', etc., of that which gives 
the meaning, without prefixing this meaningless 
sound. But by this word there is indicated just 
this: that not a being or essence or universal in 
general, but a being reflected into itself, a subject, is 
posited. But at the same time this is merely in- 
tuited. The subject is presumed as a fixed point, 
to which, as to their support, the predicates are 
attached, through a movement which belongs to him 
who is aware of it, but which is not viewed as be- 
longing to the point itself. Yet through this move- 
ment alone could the content be presented as subject. 



Singularism and Pluralism 393 

Considering the manner in which this movement is 
constituted it can not belong to it ; but after the pre- 
supposition of that point it can not be constituted 
otherwise, it can be only external. That presenti- 
ment that the Absolute is Subject is therefore not 
only not the actualization of this concept, but makes 
it even impossible ; for it posits Him as a stationary 
point, while the reality is self-movement. 

Among many sorts of consequences which fol- 
low from what has been said this may be empha- 
sized, that knowledge exists and is to be pre- 
sented only as science or as system; that further a 
so-called axiom or principle of philosophy, even if it 
is true, is also false in so far as it exists only as 
axiom or principle. It is therefore easy to refute it. 
The refutation consists in showing its deficiency; 
but it is deficient because it is only the universal or 
principle, the beginning. If the refutation is well 
founded it is taken and developed out of the principle 
itself, not effected through opposed affirmations and 
sallies from without. It would therefore really be 
the agent of development and the means of sup- 
plying defects if it did not err in giving atten- 
tion only to negative effects and in not being 
aware of progress and result on the positive side 
also. On the other hand the true positive develop- 
ment of the starting point is at once just as much 
a negative procedure against it, that is against its 
one-sided form, when it is merely immediate or mere 
goal. It can therefore be taken equally well as 
refutation of that which constitutes the basis of the 
system, but more correctly is it to be viewed as a 



394 Readings in Philosophy 

revelation that the basis or principle of the system 
is in fact only its beginning. 

That the true is actual only as system, or that 
Substance is essentially subject, is expressed in the 
view that represents the Absolute as Spirit, — in 
the loftiest of conceptions, and the one which belongs 
to recent time and to its religion. The spiritual 
alone is actual ; it is essence or self-existence, — the 
self-determining and definite, Otherness and Self- 
existence — and in this determinateness or its other- 
ness yet remaining within itself; or it is in and for 
itself. It is this being i7i and for itself, however, 
only /or us or in itself ; it is spiritual substance. It 
must be this also /or itself, must be knowledge of 
the spiritual and knowledge of itself as the spiritual, 
that is, it must be object to itself, but also immedi- 
jately as object taken up and reflected into itself. It 
is explicitly revealed only for us and in so far as its 
spiritual content is begotten through itself; but in 
so far as it is explicitly revealed to itself this self- 
production, the pure concept, is at the same time 
the objective element in it, wherein it has its exist- 
ence. And in this way in its existence for itself 
it is its object reflected into itself. The spirit which 
knows itself thus developed as spirit, is science. 
Science is its actuality and the realm which it builds 
for itself in its own element. 

Pure self-knowledge by way of what is absolutely 
'other' — this ether as such — is the very founda- 
tion of science or of knowledge in general. Phi- 
losophy at the very beginning presupposes or de- 
mands that consciousness thrive in this atmosphere. 
But this element achieves its perfection and illumi- 



Singularism and Pluralism 395 

nation only through its process of development. It 
is pure spirituality, the universal, which has the as- 
pect of simple immediacy ; — this Simple, in its ex- 
istence as such, is the Ground, the Thought, which 
exists only in spirit. Because this element, this 
immediacy of spirit, is the Substance of spirit in 
general, it is the transfigiwed essence, i. e., reflection 
which is aware of its own simplicity and immediacy, 
and it is immediate Being which consists in reflec- 
tion upon self. Science on^ its part demands of self- 
consciousness that it have raised itself into this 
ether, that it may be able to live and actually should 
live with it and in it. On the contrary the individual 
has the right to demand that science offer him at 
least a ladder reaching to this point, and reveal to 
him this same standpoint in himself. His right is 
based upon his absolute independence, which knows 
how to possess this right in every form of his knowl- 
edge, for in every one, be it recognized by science or 
not, and be the content what it will, he, the indi- 
vidual, is the absolute form, that is, he is the imme- 
diate certainty of himself, and — if this expression 
be preferred — thereby unconditioned Being. If 
the standpoint of ''consciousness", which knows ob- 
jective things in opposition to itself, and itself in 
opposition to them, amounts in the eyes of science 
to an alien one (a standpoint in which science, in 
its own heart, sees itself losing the very nature of 
sj)irit) , on the other hand the atmosphere of science 
is to "consciousness" a remote region, in which it 
no longer finds itself. Each of these two parties 
appears to the other the reverse of truth. Natural 
consciousness in committing itself immediately to 



396 Readings in Philosophy 

science is making an attempt, knowing not from 
what impulse, to walk on its head ; the constraint to 
assume this unaccustomed position and to move 
about therein is a violence that it is expected to do 
to itself for which it is unprepared and which seems 
unnecessary. Let science be in itself what it will, 
to immediate self-consciousness it presents itself 
as a perversion, or, since self-consciousness has cer- 
tainty of itself as the principle of its actuality, it 
regards itself as external to science, which there- 
fore appears to it as unreal. Science has therefore 
to unite this element with itself or rather to show 
that this element belongs to it and how. As lacking 
such actuality science is only content, undeveloped, 
the goal which is still latent, not spirit, but the 
potential stuff of spirit. This implicit element has 
to render itself explicit, and become its own object; 
which means nothing else than that it must establish 
self-consciousness as one with itself. 

This development of science in general, or of 
knowledge, is what the Phenomenology of Spirit 
presents. Knowledge as it is at first, or immediate 
spirit, is spirit-less, sensuous consciousness. In 
order to develop into real knowledge, or to realize 
the essence of science which is its pure concept itself, 
it has' to work its way through a long course. This 
development, as it will assume expression in its con- 
tent and the forms which appear in it, will not be 
what one understands in the first instance by the 
bringing of unscientific consciousness to scientifi-C. 
It will also be something other than laying the foun- 
dation of science ; — as also something else than con- 
fident dogmatism which begins pointblank with ab- 



Singularism and Pluralism 397 

solute knowledge, and is thereby done with other 
standpoints, merely explaining that it proposes to 
take no notice of them. 

The task of leading the individual from his un- 
developed state to the state of knowledge, was to be 
taken in its general sense, and the general individual, 
self-conscious spirit, to be observed in its develop- 
ment. As concerns the relation of the two every 
factor shows itself in the general individual as it 
gains concrete form and peculiar figure. The par- 
ticular individual is unperfected spirit, a concrete 
form, in whose whole existence one type of deter- 
minateness is sovereign, and in which others are 
present only in blurred outlines. In the mind which 
stands on the higher level the lower concrete exist- 
ence has sunk to a subordinate factor; what was 
previously an independent thing is now only a trace ; 
its form has been absorbed and has become a mere 
bit of shading. The individual whose substance is 
the higher mind traverses this outgrown stage in the 
manner in which one who is taking up a higher 
science, reviews the elementary knowledge which he 
acquired long ago, in order to recall its content to 
his mind. He recalls this content without having 
any interest in and without lingering over it. With 
regard to content each finite mind has also to pass 
through the stages of development of the universal 
mind, but it traverses them as forms already laid 
aside by the spirit, as steps in a path that is already 
finished and leveled. So we see with respect to 
intellectual attainments that that which in earlier 
ages occupied the mature spirit of man has sunk 
down to common information, drill practice, and even 



398 Readings in Philosophy 

games of boyhood; and we shall recognize in the 
stages of educational progress the history of the 
civilization of the world as it were sketched in hasty 
outline. This past existence is the already ap- 
propriated possession of the general mind, which 
constitutes the substance of the individual and, as it 
appears externally to him, his inorganic nature. 
Education in this respect viewed from the position 
of the individual consists in mastering what is ready 
to hand, assimilating its inorganic nature and taking 
it up into full possession. This, however, from the 
standpoint of the general mind as substance, is noth- 
ing but its gaining of self -consciousness, effecting its 
own process, and reflection into itself. 

Science presents this movement of culture both 
in its fulness and its necessity as that w^hich has 
already sunken down to the level of mere part and 
property of the Spirit in the course of its formation. 
The final goal is the insight of the Spirit into what 
knowledge is. Impatience demands the impossible, 
that is the attainment of the end without the means. 
On the one hand this long journey must be endured, 
for every factor is necessary ; — on the other hand 
one should linger with each stage, for each is itself 
an individual, total form, and is seen in its abso- 
luteness only in so far as its determinateness as 
whole or concrete, or the whole in this peculiar de- 
terminate form, is taken into consideration. Be- 
cause the substance of the individual, because even 
the World Spirit, has had the patience to go through 
these forms in the long stretch of time, and to under- 
take the vast labor of World History, in which it 
gave to each form the fullest amount of itself which 



Singularism and PluralisTn 399 

it was capable of receiving, and because through 
nothing less could it attain the consciousness of itself, 
neither can the individual really comprehend its own 
substance with less effort. Still, it has at once less 
trouble because potentially this is accomplished; 
the content is an actuality now reduced to poten- 
tiality, its immediacy having been overcome; the 
formative process has been abbreviated to a simple 
conceptual description. As already an object of 
thought the content has become a possession of 
Substance; existence is not to be turned back into 
its undeveloped form ; that which is no more primi- 
tive, nor on the low level of mere existence, but 
rather now potential in memory only, is to be trans- 
formed into object of full consciousness. The man- 
ner in which this is done is to be given in more 
detail. 

What the Whole can dispense with at the point 
at which we here take up this movement is the 
transcending of mere existence; what is still left, 
however, and needs higher transformation, is our 
common ideas and familiar conceptions. Existence 
which has been taken up into substance is through 
that first negation transferred into the sphere of the 
Self only on the level of immediacy. This possession 
gained by it has therefore still the same character 
of uncomprehended immediacy, of calm indifference, 
as mere existence itself, and has thus passed over 
only into sense imagery. Thereupon it has become 
a familiar thing, such a thing as t|ie living mind 
is done with, wherein its activity and consequently 
its interest no longer lies. If the activity which 
does away with mere existence itself is only the 



400 Readings in Philosophy 

movement of the particular spirit which does not 
comprehend itself, on the contrary knowledge is 
directed against the sensory image which has hereby 
come into existence, against this mere familiarity; 
it is activity of the Universal Self, and the interest 
of Thought. 

C. Pluralism versus Monism. 

James's contrast of the two views with preference 
of the pluralistic doctrine is set forth in the follow- 
ing well known pages: 

For^ monism the world is no collection, but one 
great all-inclusive fact outside of which is nothing 
— nothing is its only alternative. When the monism 
is idealistic, this all-enveloping fact is represented 
as an absolute mind that makes the partial facts by 
thinking them, just as we make objects in a dream 
by dreaming them, or personages in a story by 
imagining them. To he, on this scheme, is, on the 
part of a finite thing, to be an object for the absolute; 
and on the part of the absolute it is to be the thinker 
of that assemblage of objects. If we use the word 
'content' here, we see that the absolute and the world 
have an identical content. The absolute is nothing 
but the knowledge of those objects; the objects are 
nothing but what the absolute knows. The world and 
the all-thinker thus compenetrate and soak each 
other up without residuum. They are but two names 
for the same identical material, considered now from 



^ James, W., A Pluralistic Universe, pages 36-40 ; Long- 
mans, Green and Company, 1909; reprinted by permission 
of the publishers. 



Singularism and Pluralism 401 

the subjective, and now from the objective point of 
view — gedanke and gedachtes, as we would say if 
we were Germans. We philosophers naturally form 
part of the material, on the monistic scheme. The 
absolute makes us by thinking us, and if we are 
ourselves enlightened enough to be believers in the 
absolute, one may then say that our philosophizing 
is one of the ways in which the absolute is conscious 
of itself. This is the full pantheistic scheme, the 
identitdtsphilosophie, the immanence of God in his 
creation, a conception sublime from its tremendous 
unity. And yet that unity is incomplete, as closer 
examination will show. 

The absolute and the world are one fact, I said, 
when materially considered. Our philosophy, for 
example, is not numerically distinct from the abso- 
lute's own knowledge of itself, not a duplicate and 
copy of it, it is part of that very knowledge, is 
numerically identical with as much of it as our 
thought covers. The absolute just is our philosophy, 
along with everything else that is known, in act of 
knowing which (to use the words of my gifted abso- 
lutist colleague Royce) it forms in its wholeness one 
luminously transparent conscious moment. 

But one as we are in this material sense with the 
absolute substance, that being only the whole of us, 
and we only the parts of it, yet in a formal sense 
something like a pluralism breaks out. When we 
speak of the absolute we take the one universal 
known material collectively or integrally; when we 
speak of its objects, of our finite selves, etc., we take 
that same identical material distributively and sepa- 



402 Readings in Philosophy 

ratdy. But what is the use of a thing's being only 
once if it can be taken twice over, and if being taken 
in different ways makes different things true of it? 
As the absolute takes me, for example, I appear luith 
everything else in its field of perfect knowledge. As 
I take myself, I appear ivithout most other things in 
my field of relative ignorance. And practical differ- 
ences result from its knowledge and my ignorance. 
Ignorance breeds mistake, curiosity, misfortune, 
pain, for me; I suffer those • consequences. The 
absolute knows of those things, of course, for it 
knows me and my suffering, but it doesn't itself 
suffer. It can't be ignorant, for simultaneous with 
its knowledge of each question goes its knowledge 
of each answer. It can't be patient, for it has to 
wait for nothing, having everything at once in its 
possession. It can't be surprised ; it can't be guilty. 
No attribute connected with succession can be ap- 
plied to it, for it is all at once and wholly what it 
is, 'with the unity of a single instant', and succes- 
sion is not of it but in it, for we are continually 
told that it is 'timeless.' 

Things true of the world in its finite aspects, then 
are not true of it in its infinite capacity. Q^ia finite 
and plural its accounts of itself to itself are different 
from what its account to itself qua infinite and one 
must be. 

With this radical discrepancy between the abso- 
lute and the relative points of view, it seems to me 
that almost as great a bar to intimacy between the 
divine and the human breaks out in pantheism as 
that which we found in monarchical theism, and 
hoped that pantheism might not show. We humans 



Singidarism and Pluralism 403 

are incurably rooted in the temporal point of view. 
The eternal's ways are utterly unlike our ways. 
'Let us imitate the All', said the original prospectus 
of that admirable Chicago quarterly called the 
'Monist'. As if we could, either in thought or con- 
duct! We are invincibly parts, let us talk as we 
will, and must always apprehend the absolute as if 
it were a foreign being. If what I mean by this 
is not wholly clear to you at this point, it ought to 
grow clearer as my lectures proceed. 

It' is curious how little countenance radical plu- 
ralism has ever had from philosophers. Whether 
materialistically or spiritualistically minded, phi- 
losophers have always aimed at cleaning up the 
litter with which the world apparently is filled. 
They have substituted economical and orderly con- 
ceptions for the first sensible tangle ; and whether 
these were morally elevated or only intellectually 
neat, they were at any rate always aesthetically pure 
and definite, and aimed at ascribing to the world 
something clean and intellectual in the way of inner 
structure. As compared with all these rationalizing 
pictures, the pluralistic empiricism which I profess 
offers but a sorry appearance. It is a turbid, 
muddled, gothic sort of an affair, without a sweep- 
ing outline and with little pictorial nobility. Those 
of you who are accustomed to the classical construc- 
tion of reality may be excused if your first reaction 
upon it be absolute contempt — a shrug of the shoul- 
ders as if such ideas were unworthy of explicit refu- 



Ibid., pp. 45-50. 



404 Readings in Philosophy 

tation. But one must have lived some time with a 
system to appreciate its merits. Perhaps a little 
more familiarity may mitigate your first surprise 
at such a programme as I offer. 

First, one word more than what I said last time 
about the relative foreignness of the divine principle 
in the philosophy of the absolute. Those of you who 
have read the last two chapters of Mr. Bradley's 
wonderful book, 'Appearance and reality', will re- 
member what an elaborately foreign aspect Ms 
absolute is finally made to assume. It is neither 
intelligence nor will, neither a self nor a collection 
of selves, neither truthful, good, nor beautiful, as we 
understand these terms. It is, in short, a meta- 
physical monster, all that we are permitted to say 
of it being that whatever it is, it is at any rate worth 
more (worth more to itself, that is) than if any 
eulogistic adjectives of ours applied to it. It is us, 
and all other appearances, but none of us as such, 
for in it we are all 'transmuted,' and its own as- 
suchness is of another denomination altogether. 

Spinoza was the first great absolutist, and the im- 
possibility of being intimate with his God is univer- 
sally recognized. Qimtenus infinities est he is other 
than what he is quatenus humanam mentem con- 
stituit. Spinoza's philosophy has been rightly said 
to be worked by the word quatenus. Conjunctions, 
prepositions, and adverbs play indeed the vital part 
in all philosophies; and in contemporary idealism 
the words 'as' and 'qua' bear the burden of recon- 
ciling metaphysical unity with phenomenal diversity. 
Qua absolute the world is one and perfect, qua rela- 
tive it is many and faulty, yet it is identically the 



Singularism and Pluralism 405 

self-same world — instead of talking of it as many- 
facts, we call it one fact in many aspects. 

As absolute, then, or sub specie eternitatis, or 
quatenus infinitus est, the world repels our sym- 
pathy because it has no history. As such, the abso- 
lute neither acts nor suffers, nor loves nor hates ; it 
has no needs, desires, or aspirations, no failures or 
successes, friends or enemies, victories or defeats. 
All such things pertain to the world qua relative, in 
which our finite experiences lie, and whose vicissi- 
tudes alone have power to arouse our interest. What 
boots it to tell me that the absolute way is the true 
way, and to exhort me, as Emerson says, to lift mine 
eye up to its style, and manners of the sky, if the 
feat is impossible by definition? I am finite once 
for all, and all the categories of my sympathy are 
knit up with the finite world as such, and with things 
v/hich have a history. 'Aus dieser erde quellen 
meine freuden, und ihre sonne scheinet meinen 
leiden'. I have neither eyes nor ears nor heart nor 
mind for anything of an opposite description, and 
the stagnant felicity of the absolute's own perfec- 
tion moves me as little as I move it. If we were 
readers only of the cosmic novel, things would be 
different: we should then share the author's point 
of view and recognize villains to be as essential as 
heroes in the plot. But we are not the readers but 
the very personages of the world-drama. In your 
own eyes each of you here is its hero, and the vil- 
lains are your respective friends or enemies. The 
tale which the absolute reader finds so perfect, we 
spoil for one another through our several vital 

27 



406 Readings in Philosophy 

identifications with the destinies of the particular 
personages involved. 

The doctrine on which the absolutists lay most 
stress is the absolute's 'timeless' character. For 
pluralists, on the other hand, time remains as real 
as anything, and nothing in the universe is great or 
static or eternal enough not to have some territory. 
But the world that each of us feels most intimately 
at home with is that of beings with histories that 
play into our history, whom we can help in their 
vicissitudes even as they help us in ours. This satis- 
faction the absolute denies us; we can neither help 
nor hinder it, for it stands outside of history. It 
surely is a merit in a philosophy to make the very 
life we lead seem real and earnest. Pluralism, in ex- 
orcising the absolute, exorcises the great de-realizer 
of the only life we are at home in, and thus redeems 
the nature of reality from essential foreignness. 
Every end, reason, motive, object of desire or aver- 
sion, ground of sorrow or joy that we feel is in the 
world of finite multifariousness, for only in that 
world does anything really happen, only there do 
events come to pass. 

How' often have I been replied to, when express- 
ing doubts of the logical necessity of the absolute, of 
flying to the opposite extreme: 'But surely, surely 
there must be some connection among things !' As 
if I must necessarily be an uncontrolled monomaniac 
insanely denying any connexion whatever, ^he 
whole question revolves in very truth about the word 
'some'. Radical empiricism and pluralism stand out 



Ihid., pp. 78-81. 



Singularism and Pluralism 407 

for the legitimacy of the notion of some : each part 
of the world is in some ways connected, in some 
other ways not connected with its other parts, and 
the ways can be discriminated, for many of them are 
obvious, and their differences are obvious to view. 
Absolutism, on its side, seems to hold that 'some' 
is a category . ruinously infected with self-contra- 
dictoriness, and that the only categories inwardly 
consistent and therefore pertinent to reality are 'all' 
and 'none'. 

The question runs into the still more general one 
with which Mr. Bradley and later writers of the 
monistic school have made us abundantly familiar 
— the question, namely, whether all the relations 
with other things, possible to a being, are pre- 
included in its intrinsic nature and enter into its 
essence, or whether, in respect to some of these rela- 
tions, it can he without reference to them, and, if it 
ever does enter into them, do so adventitiously and 
as it were by an after-thought. This is the great 
question as to whether 'externar relations can exist. 
They seem to, undoubtedly. My manuscript, for 
example, is 'on' the desk. The relation of being 'on' 
doesn't seem to implicate or involve in any way the 
inner meaning of the manuscript or the inner struc- 
ture of the desk — these objects engage in it only 
by their outsides, it seems only a temporary acci- 
dent in their respective histories. Moreover, the 
'on' fails to appear to our senses as one of those 
unintelligible 'betweens' that have to be separately 
hooked on the .terms they pretend- to connect. All 
this innocent sense-appearance, however, we are 
told, cannot pass muster in the eyes of reason. It 



408 Readings in Philosophy 

is a tissue of self-contradiction which only the com- 
plete absorption of the desk and the manuscript into 
the higher unity of a more absolute reality can over- 
come. 

The reasoning by which this conclusion is sup- 
ported is too subtle and complicated to be properly 
dealt with in a public lecture, and you will thank" me 
for not inviting you to consider it at all. I feel the 
more free to pass it by now as I think that the 
cursory account of the absolutistic attitude which I 
have already given is sufficient for our present pur- 
pose, and that my own verdict on the philosophy of 
the absolute as 'not proven' — please observe that I 
go no farther now — need not be backed by argu- 
ment at every special point. Flanking operations 
are less costly and in some ways more effective than 
frontal attacks. Possibly you will yourselves think 
after hearing my remaining lectures that the alter- 
native of an universe absolutely rational or abso- 
lutely irrational is forced and strained, and that a 
via media exists which some of you may agree with 
me is to be preferred. Some rationality certainly 
does characterize our universe; and, weighing one 
kind with another, we may deem that the incomplete 
kinds that appear are on the whole as acceptable as 
the through-and-through sort of rationality on 
which the monistic systematizers insist. 

This* is the philosophy of humanism in the widest 
sense. Our philosophies swell the current of being, 
add their character to it. They are part of all that 
we have met, of all that makes us be. As a French 



Ihid., pp. 317-319. 



Singulmnsm and Pluralism 409 

philosopher says, 'Nous sommes du reel dans le reel'. 
Our thoughts determine our acts, and our acts re- 
determine the previous nature of the world. 

Thus does foreignness get banished from our 
world, and far more so when we take the system of 
it pluralistically than when we take it monistically. 
We are indeed internal parts of God and not external 
creations, on any possible reading of the panpsychic 
system. Yet because God is not the absolute, but 
is himself a part when the system is conceived 
pluralistically, his functions can be taken as not 
wholly dissimilar to those of the other smaller parts, 
— as similar to our functions consequently. Having 
an environment, being in time, and working out a 
history just like ourselves, he escapes from the for- 
eignness from all that is human, of the static time- 
less perfect absolute. 

Remember that one of our troubles with that was 
its essential foreignness and monstrosity — there 
really is no other word for it than that. Its having 
the all-inclusive form gave to it an essentially hetero- 
geneous nature from ourselves. And this great dif- 
ference between absolutism and pluralism demands 
no difference in the universe's material content — it 
follows from a difference in the form alone. The 
all-form or monistic form makes the foreignness 
result, the each-form or pluralistic form leaves the 
intimacy undisturbed. 

No matter what the content of the universe may 
be, if you only allow that it is many everywhere and 
always, that nothing real escapes from having an 
environment; so far from defeating its rationality, 
as the absolutists so unanimously pretend, you leave 



410 Readings in Philosophy 

it in possession of the maximum amount of ration- 
ality practically attainable by our minds. Your 
relations with it, intellectual, emotional, and active, 
remain fluent and congruous with your own nature's 
chief demands. 

Pragmatically" interpreted, pluralism or the doc- 
trine that it is many means only that the sundry- 
parts of reality may he externally related. Every- 
thing you can think of, however vast or inclusive, 
has on the pluralistic view a genuinely 'external' en- 
vironment of some sort or amount. Things are 
'with' one another in many ways, but nothing in- 
cludes everything, or dominates over everything. 
The word 'and' trails along after every sentence. 
Something always escapes. 'Ever not quite' has to 
be said of the best attempts made anywhere in the 
universe at attaining all-inclusiveness. The plu- 
ralistic world is thus more like a federal republic 
than like an empire or a kingdom. However much 
may be collected, however much may report itself 
as present at any effective centre of consciousness 
or action, something else is self-governed and absent 
and unreduced to unity. 

Monism, on the other hand, insists that when 
you come down to reality as such, to the reality of 
realities, everything is present to eve7'ything else 
in one vast instantaneous co-implicated complete- 
ness — nothing can in any sense, functional or sub- 
stantial, be really absent from anything else, all 
things interpenetrate and telescope together in the 
great total conflux. 



Ibid., pp. 321-330. 



Singularism and Pluralism 411 

For pluralism, all that we are required to admit 
as the constitution of reality is what we ourselves 
find empirically realized in every minimum of finite 
life. Briefly it is this, that nothing real is abso- 
lutely simple, that every smallest bit of experience 
is a multiim in parvo plurally related, that each re- 
lation is one aspect, character, or function, way 
of its being taken, or way of its taking something 
else ; and that a bit of reality when actively engaged 
in one of these relations is not by that very fact 
engaged in all the other relations simultaneously. 
The relations are not all what the French call soli- 
daires with one another. Without losing its iden- 
tity a thing can either take up or drop another 
thing, like the log I spoke of, which by taking up 
new carriers and dropping old ones can travel any- 
where with a light escort. 

For monism, on the contrary, everything, whether 
we realize it or not, drags the whole universe along 
with itself and drops nothing. The log starts and 
arrives with all its carriers supporting it. If a 
thing were once disconnected, it could never be con- 
nected again, according to monism. The pragmatic 
difference between the two systems is thus a definite 
one. It is just thus, that if a is once out of sight 
of b or out of touch with it, or, more briefly, 'out' 
of it at all, then, according to monism, it must 
always remain so, they can never get together; 
whereas pluralism admits that on another occasion 
they may work together, or in some way be con- 
nected again. Monism allows for no such things as 
'other occasions' in reality — in real or absolute 
reality, that is. 



412 Readings in Philosophy 

The difference I try to describe amounts, you see, 
to nothing more than the difference between what I 
formerly called the each-form and the all-form of 
reality. Pluralism lets things really exist in the 
each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that 
the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form 
that is rational. The all-form allows of no taking 
up and dropping of connections, for in the all the 
parts are essentially and eternally co-implicated. In 
the each-form, on the contrary, a thing may be con- 
nected by intermediary things, with a thing with 
which it has no immediate or essential connexion. 
It is thus at all times in many possible connexions 
which are not necessarily actualized at the moment. 
They depend on which actual path of intermedia- 
tion it may functionally strike into: the word 'or' 
names a genuine reality. Thus, as I speak here, 
I may look ahead or to the right or to the left, and 
in either case the intervening space and air and 
ether enable me to see the faces of a different portion 
of this audience. My being here is independent of 
any one set of these faces. , 

If the each-form be the eternal form of reality 
no less than it is the form of temporal appearance, 
we still have a coherent world, and not an incarnate 
incoherence, as is charged by so many absolutists. 
Our 'multiverse' still makes a 'universe'; for every 
part, though it may not be in actual or immediate 
connection, is nevertheless in some possible or medi- 
ated connection, with every other part however re- 
mote, through the fact that each part hangs together 
with its very next neighbors in inextricable inter- 
fusion. The type of union, it is true, is different 



Singularism and Pluralism 413 

here from the monistic type of all-einheit. It is not 
a universal co-implication, or integration of all 
things durcheinander. It is what I call the strung- 
along type, the type of continuity, contiguity, or con- 
catenation. If you prefer greek words, you may 
call it the synechistic type. At all events, you see 
that it forms a definitely conceivable alternative to 
the through-and-through unity of all things at once, 
which is the type opposed to it by monism. You 
see also that it stands or falls with the notion I have 
taken such pains to defend, of the through-and- 
through union of adjacent minima of experience, of 
the confluence of every passing moment of concretely 
felt experience with its immediately next neighbors. 
The recognition of this fact of coalescence of next 
with next in concrete experience, so that all the in- 
sulating cuts we make there are artificial products 
of the conceptualizing faculty, is what distinguishes 
the empiricism which I call 'radical', from the buga- 
boo empiricism of the traditional rationalist critics, 
which (rightly or wrongly) is accused of chopping 
up experience into atomistic sensations, incapable 
of union with one another until a purely intellectual 
principle has swooped down upon them from on 
high and folded them in its own conjunctive cate- 
gories. Here, then, you have the plain alternative, 
and the full mystery of the difference between plu- 
ralism and monism, as clearly as I can set it forth 
on this occasion. It packs up into a nutshell : — Is 
the manyness in oneness that indubitably char- 
acterizes the world we inhabit, a property only of 
the absolute whole of things, so that you must postu- 
late that one-enormous-whole indivisibly as the 



414 Readings in Philosophy 

prills of there being any many at all — in other 
words, start with the rationalistic block-universe, 
entire, unmitigated, and complete? — or can the 
finite elements have their own aboriginal forms of 
manyness in oneness, and where they have no im- 
mediate oneness still be continued into one another 
by intermediary terms — each one of these terms 
being one with its next neighbors, and yet the total 
'oneness' never getting absolutely complete? 

The alternative is definite. It seems to me, more- 
over, that the two horns of it make pragmatically 
dififerent ethical appeals — at least they may do so, 
to certain individuals. ' But if you consider the 
pluralistic horn to be intrinsically irrational, self- 
contradictory, and absurd, I can now say no more in 
its defence. Having done what I could in my earlier 
lectures to break the edge of the intellectualistic 
reductiones ad absurdum, I must leave the issue in 
your hands. Whatever I may say, each of you will 
be sure to take pluralism or leave it, just as your 
own sense of rationality moves and inclines. The 
only thing I emphatically insist upon is that it is a 
fully coordinate hypothesis with monism. This 
world may, in the last resort, be a block universe; 
but on the other hand it mai/ be a universe only 
strung-along, not rounded in and closed. Reality 
may exist distributively just as it sensibly seems to, 
after all. On that possibility I do insist. 

One's general vision of the probable usually decides 
such alternatives. They illustrate what I once wrote 
of as the 'will to believe'. In some of my lectures 
at Harvard I have spoken of what I call the 'faith- 
ladder', as something quite diflferent from the sorites 



Singularism and Phoralism 415 

of the logic-books, yet seeming to have an analogous 
form. I think you will quickly recognize in your- 
selves, as I describe it, the mental process to which 
I give this name. 

A conception of the world arises in you some- 
how, no matter how. Is it true or not? you ask. 

It might be true somewhere, you say, for it is not 
self-contradictory. 

It may be true, you continue, even here and now. 

It is fit to be true, it would be ivell if it luere true, 
it ought to be true, you presently feel. 

It must be true, something persuasive in you whis- 
pers next; and then — as a final result — 

It shall he, held for ti'ue, you decide; it shall he as 
if true, for you. 

And your acting thus may in certain special cases 
be a means of making it securely true in the end. 

Not one step in this process is logical, yet it is 
the way in which monists and pluralists alike 
espouse and hold fast to their visions. It is life 
exceeding logic, it is the practical reason for which 
the theoretic reason finds arguments after the con- 
clusion is once there. In just this way do some of 
us hold to the unfinished pluralistic universe; in just 
this way do others hold to the timeless universe eter- 
nally complete. 

Meanwhile the incompleteness of the pluralistic 
universe, thus assumed and held to as the most prob- 
able hypothesis, is also represented by the pluralistic 
philosophy as being self-reparative through us, as 



416 Readings in Philosophy 

getting its disconnections remedied in part by our 
behavior. 'We use what we are and have, to know; 
and what we know, to be and have still more'. Thus 
do philosophy and reality, theory and action, work 
in the same circle indefinitely. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION AND TELEOLOGY 

A. The Meaning of Evolution. 

The literature discussing this problem is very vast. 
The following passage has been selected as one of 
the most significant of the recent statements of 
philosophic interpretation of the problem: 

From^ this point of view, the general considera- 
tions we have presented concerning the evolution of 
life will be cleared up and completed. We will dis- 
tinguish more sharply what is accidental from what 
is essential in this evolution. 

The impetus of life, of which we are speaking, con- 
sists in a need of creation. It cannot create abso- 
lutely, because it is confronted with matter, that is 
to say with the movement that is the inverse of its 
own. But it seizes upon this matter, which is neces- 
sity itself, and strives to introduce into it the largest 
possible amount of indetermination and liberty. 
How does it go to work? 

An animal high in the scale may be represented in 
a general way, we said, as a sensori-motor nervous 
system imposed on digestive, respiratory, circulatory 
systems, et<;. The function of these latter is to 



^ Bergson, H., Creative Evolution, translated by Mitchell, 
pages 251-271; Henry Holt and Company, 1913; reprinted 
by permission of the publishers. 

(417) 



418 Readings in Philosophy 

cleanse, repair and protect the nervous system, to 
make it as independent as possible of external cir- 
cumstances, but, above all, to furnish it with, energy 
to be expended in movements. The increasing com- 
plexity of the organism is therefore due theoretically 
(in spite of innumerable exceptions due to accidents 
of evolution) to the necessity of complexity in the 
nervous system. No doubt, each complication of 
any part of the organism involves many others in 
addition, because this part itself must live, and every 
change in one point of the body reverberates, as it 
were, throughout. The complication may therefore 
go on to infinity in all directions ; but it is the com- 
plication of the nervous system which conditions the 
others in right, if not always in fact. Now, in what 
does the progress of the nervous system itself con- 
sist? In a simultaneous development of automatic 
activity and of voluntary activity, the first furnish- 
ing the second with an appropriate instrument. 
Thus, in an organism such as ours, a considerable 
number of motor mechanisms are set up in the 
medulla and in the spinal cord, awaiting only a 
signal to release the corresponding act: the will is 
employed, in some cases, in setting up the mechan- 
ism itself, and in the others in choosing the mechan- 
isms to be released, the manner of combining them 
and the moment of releasing them. The will of an 
animal is the more effective and the more intense, 
the greater the number of the mechanisms it can 
choose from, the more complicated the switchboard 
on which all the motor paths cross, or in other words, 
the more developed its brain. Thus, the progress of 
the nervous system assures to the act increasing pre- 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 419 

cision, increasing variety, increasing efficiency and 
independence. The organism behaves more and 
more like a machine for action, which reconstructs 
itself entirely for every new act, as if it were hiade 
of india-rubber and could, at any moment, change 
the shape of all its parts. But, prior to the nervous 
system, prior even to the organism properly so 
called, already in the undifferentiated mass of the 
amoeba, this essential property of animal life is 
found. The amoeba deforms itself in varying direc- 
tions ; its entire mass does what the differentiation 
of parts will localize in a sensori-motor system in 
the developed animal. Doing it only in a rudi- 
mentary, manner, it is dispensed from the complexity 
of the higher organisms; there is no need here of 
the auxiliary elements that pass on to motor ele- 
ments the energy to expend ; the animal moves as a 
whole, and, as a whole also, procures energy by 
means of the organic substances it assimilates. 
Thus, whether low or high in the animal scale, we 
always find that animal life consists (1) in procur- 
ing a provision of energy; (2) in expending it, by 
means of a matter as supple as possible, in directions 
variable and unforeseen. 

Now, whence comes the energy? From the in- 
gested food, for food is a kind of explosive, which 
needs only the spark to discharge the energy it 
stores. Who has made this explosive? The food 
may be the flesh of an animal nourished on animals 
and so on ; but, in the end it is to the vegetable we 
always come back. Vegetables alone gather in the 
solar energy, and the animals do but borrow it from 
them, either directly or by some passing it on to 



420 Readings in Philosophy 

others. How then has the plant stored up this 
energy? Chiefly by the chlorophyllian function, a 
chemicism sui generis of which we do not possess 
the key, and which is probably unlike that of our 
laboratories. The process consists in using solar 
energy to fix the carbon of carbonic acid, and thereby 
to store this energy as we should store that of a 
water-carrier by employing him to fill an elevated 
reservoir: the water, once brought up, can set in 
motion a mill or a turbine, as we will and when we 
will. Each atom of carbon fixed represents some- 
thing like the elevation of the weight of water, or 
like the stretching of an elastic thread uniting the 
carbon to the oxygen in the carbonic acid. The 
elastic is relaxed, the weight falls back again, in 
short the energy held in reserve is restored, when, 
by a simple release, the carbon is permitted to rejoin 
its oxygen. 

So that all life, animal and vegetable, seems in its 
essence like an effort to accumulate energy and then 
to let it flow into flexible channels, changeable in 
shape, at the end of which it will accomplish infi- 
nitely varied kinds of work. That is what the vital 
impetus, passing through matter, would fain do all 
at once. It would succeed, no doubt, if its power 
were unlimited, or if some reinforcement could come 
to it from without. But the impetus is finite, and 
it has been given once for all. It cannot overcome 
all obstacles. The movem^ent it starts is sometimes 
turned aside, sometimes divided, always opposed; 
and the evolution of the organized world is the un- 
rolling of this conflict. The first great scission that 
had to be effected was that of the two kingdoms, 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 421 

vegetable and animal, which thus happen to be mu- 
tually complementary, without, however, any agree- 
ment having been made between them. It is not 
for the animal that the plant accumulates energy, 
it is for its own consumption; but its expenditure 
on itself is less discontinuous, and less concentrated, 
and therefore less efficacious, than was required by 
the initial impetus of life, essentially directed to- 
ward free actions : the same organism could not with 
equal force sustain the two functions at once, of 
gradual storage and sudden use. Of themselves, 
therefore, and without any external intervention, 
simply by the effect of the duality of the tendency 
involved in the original impetus and of the resistance 
opposed by matter to this impetus, the organisms 
leaned some in the first direction, others in the sec- 
ond. To this scission there succeeded many others. 
Hence the diverging lines of evolution, at least what 
is essential in them. But we must take into account 
retrogressions, arrests, accidents of every kind. And 
we must remember, above all, that each species be- 
haves as if the general movement of life stopped at 
it instead of passing through it. It thinks only of 
itself, it lives only for itself. Hence the number- 
less struggles that we behold in nature. Hence a 
discord, striking and terrible, but for which the 
original principle of life must not be held responsible. 
The part played by contingency in evolution is 
therefore great. Contingent, generally, are the 
forms adopted, or rather invented. Contingent, 
relative to the obstacles encountered in a given place 
and at a given moment, is the dissociation of the 
primordial tendency into such and such comple- 

28 



422 Readings in Philosoj^hy 

mentary tendencies which create divergent lines of 
evolution. Contingent the arrests and set-backs; 
contingent, in large measure, the adaptations. Two 
things only are necessary: (1) a gradual accumu- 
lation of energy; (2) an elastic canalization of this 
energy in variable and indeterminable directions, at 
the end of which are free acts. 

This twofold result has been obtained in a par- 
ticular way on our planet. But it might have been 
obtained by entirely different means. It was not 
necessary that life should fix its choice mainly upon 
the carbon of carbonic acid. What was essential 
for it was to store solar energy; but, instead of 
asking the sun to separate, for instance, atoms of 
oxygen and carbon, it might (theoretically at least, 
and, apart from practical difficulties possibly insur- 
mountable) have put forth other chemical elements, 
which would then have had to be associated or dis- 
sociated by entirely different physical means. And 
if the element characteristic of the substances that 
supply energy to the organism had been other than 
carbon, the element characteristic of the plastic sub- 
stances would probably have been other than nitro- 
gen, and the chemistry of living bodies would then 
have been radically different from what it is. The 
result would have been living forms without any 
analogy to those we know, whose anatomy would 
have been different, whose physiology also would 
have been different. Alone, the sensori-motor func- 
tion would have been preserved, if not in its 
mechanism, at least in its effects. It is therefore 
probable that life goes on in other planets, in other 
solar systems also, under forms of which we have 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 423 

no idea, in physical conditions to which it seems to 
us, from the point of view of our physiology, to be 
absolutely opposed. If its essential aim is to catch 
up usable energy in order to expend it in explosive 
actions, it probably chooses, in each solar system and 
on each planet, as it does on the earth, the fittest 
means to get this result in the circumstances with 
which it is confronted. That is at least what reason- 
ing by analogy leads to, and we use analogy the 
wrong way when we declare life to be impossible 
wherever the circumstances with which it is con- 
fronted are other than those on the earth. The truth 
is that life is possible wherever energy descends the 
incline indicated by Carnot's law and where a cause 
of inverse direction can retard the descent — that is 
to say, probably, in all the worlds suspended from all 
the stars. We go further: it is not even necessary 
that life should be concentrated and determined in 
organisms properly so called, that is, in definite 
bodies presenting to the flow of energy ready-made 
though elastic canals. It can be conceived (although 
it. can hardly be imagined) that energy might be 
saved up, and then expended on varying lines run- 
ning across a matter not yet solidified. Every es- 
sential of life would still be there, since there would 
still be slow accumulation of energy and sudden re- 
lease. There would hardly be more difference be- 
tween this vitality, vague and formless, and the 
definite vitality we know, than there is, in our 
psychical life, between the state of dream and the 
state of waking. Such may have been the condition 
of life in our nebula before the condensation of mat- 
ter was complete, if it be true that life springs for- 



424 Readings in Philosophy 

ward at the very moment when, as the effect of an 
inverse movement, the nebular matter appears. 

It is therefore conceivable that life might have 
assumed a totally different outward appearance and 
designed forms very different from those we know. 
With another chemical substratum, in other physi- 
cal conditions, the impulsion would have remained 
the same, but it would have split up very differently 
in course of progress; and the whole would have 
traveled another road — whether shorter or longer 
who can tell? In any case, in the entire series of 
living beings no term would have been what it now 
is. Now, was it necessary that there should be a 
series, or terms? Why should not the unique im- 
petus have been impressed on a unique body, which 
might have gone on evolving? 

This question arises, no doubt, from the compari- 
son of life to an impetus. And it must be compared 
to an impetus, because no image borrowed from the 
physical world can give more nearly the idea of it. 
But it is only an image. In reality, life is of the 
psychological order, and it is of the essence of the 
psychical to enfold a confused plurality of interpene- 
trating terms. In space, and in space only, is dis- 
tinct multiplicity possible: a point is absolutely ex- 
ternal to another point. But pure and empty unity, 
also, is met with only in space ; it is that of a mathe- 
matical point. Abstract unity and abstract multi- 
plicity are determinations of space or categories of 
the understanding, whichever we will, spatiality and 
intellectuality being molded on each other. But what 
is of psychical nature cannot entirely correspond 
with space, nor enter perfectly into the categories of 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 425 

the understanding. Is my own person, at a given 
moment, one or manifold ? If I declare it one, inner 
voices arise and protest — those of the sensations, 
feelings, ideas, among which my individuality is 
distributed. But, if I make it distinctly manifold, 
my consciousness rebels quite as strongly ; it affirms 
that my sensations, my feelings, my thoughts are ab- 
stractions which I effect on myself, and that each 
of my states implies all the others. I am then (we 
must adopt the language of the understanding, since 
only the understanding has language) a unity that 
is multiple and a multiplicity that is one; but unity 
and multiplicity are only views of my personality 
taken by an understanding that directs its categories 
at me ; I enter neither into one nor into the other nor 
into both at once, although both, united, may give a 
fair imitation of the mutual interpenetration and 
continuity that I find at the base of my own self. 
Such is my inner life, and such also is life in general. 
While, in its contact with matter, life is comparable 
to an impulsion or an impetus, regarded in itself it 
is an immensity of potentiality, a mutual encroach- 
ment of thousands and thousands of tendencies 
which nevertheless are "thousands and thousands" 
only when once regarded as outside of each other, 
that is, when spatialized. Contact with matter is 
what determines this dissociation. Matter divides 
actually what was but potentially manifold; and, in 
this sense, individuation is in part the work of 
matter, in part the result of life's own inclination. 
Thus, a poetic sentiment, which bursts into distinct 
verses, lines and words, may be said to have already 
contained this multiplicity of individuated elements. 



426 Readings in Philosophy 

and yet, in fact, it is the materiality of language that 
creates it. 

But through the words, lines and verses runs the 
simple inspiration which is the whole poem. So, 
among the dissociated individuals, one life goes on 
moving : everywhere the tendency to individualize is 
opposed and at the same time completed by an an- 
tagonistic and complementary tendency to associate, 
as if the manifold unity of life, drawn in the direc- 
tion of multiplicity, made so much the more effort 
to withdraw itself on to itself. A part is no sooner 
detached than it tends to reunite itself, if not to all 
the rest, at least to what is nearest to it. Hence, 
throughout the whole realm of life, a balancing be- 
tween individuation and association. Individuals 
join together into society; but the society, as soon as 
formed, tends to melt the associated individuals into 
a new organism, so as to become itself an individual, 
able in its turn to be part and parcel of a new as- 
sociation. At the lowest degree of the scale of organ- 
isms we already find veritable associations, microbial 
colonies, and in these associations, according to a 
recent work, a tendency to individuate by the con- 
stitution of a nucleus. The same tendency is met 
with again at a higher stage, in the protophytes, 
which, once having quitted the parent cell by way 
of division, remain united to each other by the gel- 
atinous substance that surrounds them — also in 
those protozoa which begin by mingling their pseu- 
dopodia and end by welding themselves together. 
The "colonial" theory of the genesis of higher or- 
ganisms is well known. The protozoa, consisting of 
one single cell, are supposed to have formed, by as- 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 427 

semblage, aggregates which, relating themselves to- 
gether in their turn, have given rise to aggregates 
of aggregates ; so organisms more and more compli- 
cated, and also more and more differentiated, are 
.born of the association of organisms barely differ- 
entiated and elementary. In this extreme form, the 
theory is open to grave objections : more and 
more the idea seems to be gaining ground, that 
polyzoism is an exceptional and abnormal fact. 
But it is none the less true that things happen 
OjS if every higher organism was born of an 
association of cells that have subdivided the 
work between them. Very probably it is not 
the cells that have made the individual by means 
of association; it is rather the individual that 
has made the cells by means of dissociation. But 
this itself reveals to us, in the genesis of the indi- 
vidual, a haunting of the social form, as if the indi- 
vidual could develop only on the condition that its 
substance should be split up into elements having 
themselves an appearance of individuality and 
united among themselves by an appearance of so- 
ciality. There are numerous cases in which nature 
seems to hesitate between the two forms, and to 
ask herself if she shall make a society or an indi- 
vidual. The slig;htest push is enough, then, to make 
the balance weigh on one side or the other. If we 
take an infusorian sufficiently large, such as the 
Stentor, and cut it into two halves each containing a 
part of the nucleus, each of the two halves will 
generate an independent Stentor; but if we divide 
it incompletely, so that a protoplasmic communica- 
tion is left between the two halves, we shall see them 



428 Readings in Philosophy 

execute, each from its side, corresponding move- 
ments : so that in this case it is enough that a thread 
should be maintained or cut in order that life should 
affect the social or the individual form. Thus, in 
rudimentary organisms consisting of a single cell, 
we already find that the apparent individuality of the 
whole is the composition of an undefined number of 
potential individualities potentially associated. But, 
from top to bottom of the series of living beings, the 
same law is manifested. And it is this that we 
express when we say that unity and multiplicity are 
categories of inert matter, that the vital impetus is 
neither pure unity nor pure multiplicity, and that 
if the matter to which it communicates itself compels 
it to choose one of the two, its choice will never be 
definitive : it will leap from one to the other in- 
definitely. The evolution of life in the double direc- 
tion of individuality and association has therefore 
nothing accidental about it: it is due to the very 
nature of life. 

Essential also is the progress to reflexion. If our 
analysis is correct, it is consciousness, or rather 
supra-consciousness, that is at the origin of life. 
Consciousness, or supra-consciousness, is the name 
for the rocket whose extinguished fragments fall 
back as matter; consciousness, again, is the name 
for that which subsists of the rocket itself, passing 
through the fragments and lighting them up into 
organism.s. But this consciousness, which is a need 
of creation, is made manifest to itself only where 
creation is possible. It lies dormant when life is 
condemned to automatism ; it wakens as soon as the 
possibility of a choice is restored. That is why, in 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 429 

organisms unprovided with a nervous system, it 
varies according to the power of locomotion and of 
deformation of which the organism disposes. And 
m animals with a nervous system, it is proportional 
to the complexity of the switchboard on which the 
paths called sensory and the paths called motor in- 
tersect — that is, of the brain. How must this 
solidarity between the organism and consciousness 
be understood? 

We will not dwell here on a point that we have 
dealt with in former works. Let us merely recall 
that a theory such as that according to which con- 
sciousness is attached to certain neurons, and is 
thrown off from their work like a phosphorescence, 
may be accepted by the scientist for the detail of 
analysis ; it is a convenient mode of expression. But 
it is nothing else. In reality, a living being is a 
centre of action. It represents a certain sum of con- 
tingency entering into the world, that is to say, a 
certain quantity of possible action — a quantity 
variable with individuals and especially with 
species. The ner\^ous system of an animal marks 
■out the flexible lines on which its action will run 
(although the potential energy is accumulated in the 
muscles rather than in the nervous system itself) ; 
its nervous centres indicate, by their development 
and their configuration, the more or less extended 
choice it will have among more or less numerous 
and complicated actions. Now, since the awakening 
of consciousness in a living creature is the more 
complete, the greater the latitude of choice allowed 
to it and the larger the amount of action bestowed 
upon it, it is clear that the development of conscious- 



430 Readings in Philosophy 

ness will appear to be dependent on that of the 
nervous centres. On the other hand, every state of 
consciousness being, in one aspect of it, a question, 
put to the motor activity and even the beginning of 
a reply, there is no psychical event that does not im- 
ply the entry into play of the cortical mechanisms. 
Everything seems, therefore, to happen as if con- 
sciousness sprang from the brain, and as if the de- 
tail of conscious activity were modeled on that of 
of the cerebral activity. In reality, consciousness 
does not spring from the brain; but brain and con- 
sciousness correspond because equally they measure, 
the one by the complexity of its structure and the 
other by the intensity of its awareness, the quantity 
of choice that the living being has at its disposal. 

It is precisely because a cerebral state expresses 
simply what there is of nascent action in the cor- 
responding psychical state, that the psychical state 
tells us more than the cerebral state. The conscious- 
ness of a living being, as we have tried to prove else- 
where, is inseparable from its brain in the sense in 
which a sharp knife is inseparable from its edge: 
the brain is the sharp edge by which consciousness 
cuts into the compact tissue of events, but the brain 
is no more coextensive with consciousness than the 
edge is with the knife. Thus, from the fact that 
two brains, like that of the ape and that of the 
man, are very much alike, we cannot conclude that 
the corresponding consciousnesses are comparable 
or commensurable. 

But the two brains may perhaps be less alike than 
we suppose. How can we help being struck by 
the fact that, while man is capable of learning any 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 431 

sort of exercise, of constructing any sort of object, in 
short of acquiring any kind of motor habit what- 
soever, the faculty of combining new movements is 
strictly limited in the best-endowed animal, even in 
the ape? The cerebral characteristic of man is 
there. The human brain is made, like every brain, 
to set up motor mechanisms and to enable us to 
choose among them, at any instant, the one we shall 
put in motion by the pull of a trigger. But it differs 
from other brains in this, that the number of 
mechanisms it can set up, and consequently the 
choice that it gives as to which among them shall 
be released, is unlimited. Now, from the limited to 
the unlimited there is all the distance between the 
closed and the open. It is not a difference of degree, 
but of kind. 

Radical therefore, also, is the difference between 
animal consciousness, even the most intelligent, and 
human consciousness. For consciousness corre- 
sponds exactly to the living being's power of choice; 
it is co-extensive with the fringe of possible action 
that surrounds the real action: consciousness is 
synonymous with invention and with freedom. 
Now, in the animal, invention is never anything but 
a variation on the theme of routine. Shut up in 
the habits of the species, it succeeds, no doubt, in en- 
larging them by its individual initiative; but it 
escapes automatism only for an instant, for just the 
time to create a new automatism. The gates of its 
prison close as soon as they are opened; by pulling 
at its chain it succeeds only in stretching it. With 
man, consciousness breaks the chain. In man, and 
in man alone, it sets itself free. The whole history 



432 Readings in Philosophy 

of life until man has been that of the effort of con- 
sciousness to raise matter, and of the more or less 
complete overwhelming of consciousness by the mat- 
ter which has fallen back on it. The enterprise was 
paradoxical, if, indeed, we may speak here otherwise 
than by metaphor of enterprise and of effort. It 
was to create with matter, which is necessity itself, 
an instrument of freedom, to make a machine which 
should triumph over mechanism, and to use the de- 
terminism of nature to pass through the meshes of 
the net which this very determinism had spread. 
But, everywhere except in man, consciousness has 
let itself be caught in the net whose meshes it tried 
to pass through : it has remained the captive of the 
mechanisms it has set up. Automatism, which it 
tries to draw in the direction of freedom, winds 
about it and drags it down. It has not the power 
to escape, because the energy it has provided for 
acts is almost all employed in maintaining the in- 
finitely subtle and essentially unstable equilibrium 
into which it has brought matter. But man not 
only maintains his machine, he succeeds in using it 
as he pleases. Doubtless he owes this to the su- 
periority of his brain, which enables him to build 
an unlimited number of motor mechanisms, to op- 
pose new habits to the old ones unceasingly, and, by 
dividing automatism against itself, to rule it. He 
owes it to his language, which furnishes conscious- 
ness with an immaterial body in which to incarnate 
itself and thus exempts it from dwelling exclusively 
on material bodies, whose flux would soon drag it 
along and finally swallow it up. He owes it to 
social life, which stores and preserves efforts as 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 433 

language stores thought, fixes thereby a mean level 
to which individuals must raise themselves at the 
outset, and by this initial stimulation prevents the 
average man from slumbering and drives the su- 
perior man to mount still higher. But our brain, 
our society, and our language are only the external 
and various signs of one and the same internal 
superiority. They tell, each after its manner, the 
unique, exceptional success which life has won at a 
given moment of its evolution. They express the 
difference of kind, and not only of degree, which 
separates man from the rest of the animal world. 
They let us guess that, while at the end of the vast 
spring-board from which life has taken its leap, 
all the others have stepped down, finding the cord 
stretched too high, man alone has cleared the ob- 
stacle. 

It is in this quite special sense that man is the 
"term" and the "end" of evolution. Life, we have 
said, transcends finality as it transcends the other 
categories. It is essentially a current sent through 
matter, drawing from it what it can. There has 
not, therefore, properly speaking, been any project 
or plan. On the other hand, it is abundantly evi- 
dent that the rest of nature is not for the sake of 
man : we struggle like the other species, we have 
struggled against other species. Moreover, if the 
evolution of life had encountered other accidents in 
its course, if, thereby, the current of life had been 
otherwise divided, we should have been, physically 
and morally, far different from what we are. For 
these various reasons it would be wrong to regard 



434 Readings in Philosophy 

humanity, such as we have it before our eyes, as pre- 
figured in the evolutionary movement. It cannot 
even be said to be the outcome of the whole of evolu- 
tion, for evolution has been accomplished on several 
divergent lines, and while the human species is at 
the end of one of them, other lines have been fol- 
lowed with other species at their end. - It is in a 
quite different sense that we hold humanity to be 
the ground of evolution. 

From our point of view, life appears in its en- 
tirety as an immense wave which, starting from a 
centre, spreads outwards, and which on almost the 
whole of its circumference is stopped and converted 
into oscillation: at one single point the obstacle 
has been forced, the impulsion has passed freely. 
It is this freedom that the human form registers. 
Everywhere but in man, consciousness has had to 
come to a stand ; in man alone it has kept on its way. 
Man, then, continues the vital movement indefinitely, 
although he does not draw along with him all that 
life carries in itself. On other lines of evolution 
there have traveled other tendencies which life im- 
plied, and of which, since everj^thing interpenetrates, 
man has, doubtless, kept something, but of which 
he has kept only very little. It is as if a vague and 
formless being, ivhom ive may call, as we will, man 
or superman, Imd sought to realize himself, and had 
succeeded only by abandoning a part of himself on 
the way. The losses are represented by the rest of 
the animal world, and even by the vegetable world, 
at least in what these have that is positive and above 
the accidents of evolution. 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 435 

From this point of view, the discordances of which 
nature offers us the spectacle are singularly weak- 
ened. The organized world as a whole becomes 
as the soil on which was to grow either man him- 
self or a being who morally must resemble him. The 
animals, however distant they may be from our 
species, however hostile to it, have none the less been 
useful traveling companions, on whom conscious- 
ness has unloaded whatever encumbrances it was 
dragging along, and who have enabled it to rise, in 
man, to heights from which it sees an unlimited 
horizon open again before it. 

It is true that it has not only abandoned cumber- 
some baggage on the way; it has also had to give 
up valuable goods. Consciousness, in man, is pre- 
eminently intellect. It might have been, it ought, 
so it seems, to have been also intuition. Intuition 
and intellect represent two opposite directions of 
the work of consciousness : intuition goes in the very- 
direction of life, intellect goes in the inverse direc- 
tion, and thus finds itself naturally in accordance 
with the movement of matter. A complete and per- 
fect humanity would be that in which these two 
forms of conscious activity should attain their full 
development. And, between this humanity and ours, 
we may conceive any number of possible stages, 
corresponding to all the degrees imaginable of intel- 
ligence and of intuition. In this lies the part of 
contingency in the mental structure of our species. 
A different evolution might have led to a humanity 
either more intellectual still or more intuitive. In 
the humanity of which we are a part, intuition is, 
in fact, almost completely sacrificed to intellect. It 



436 Readings in Philosophy 

seems that to conquer matter, and to reconquer its 
own self, consciousness has had to exhaust the best 
part of its power. This conquest, in the particular 
conditions in which it has been accomplished, has 
required that consciousness should adapt itself to 
the habits of matter and concentrate all its atten- 
tion on them, in fact determine itself more espe- 
cially as intellect. Intuition is there, however, but 
vague and above all discontinuous. It is a lamp 
almost extinguished, which only glimmers now and 
then, for a few moments at most. But it glimmers 
wherever a vital interest is at stake. On our per- 
sonality, on our liberty, on the place we occupy in 
the whole of nature, on our origin and perhaps also 
on our destiny, it throws a light feeble and vacillat- 
ing, but which none the less pierces the darkness of 
the night in which the intellect leaves us. 

These fleeting intuitions, which light up their ob- 
ject only at distant intervals, philosophy ought to 
seize, first to sustain them, then to expand them and 
so unite them together. The more it advances in 
this work, the more will it perceive that intuition 
is mind itself, and, in a certain sense, life itself: 
the intellect has been cut out of it by a process re- 
sembling that which has generated matter. Thus 
is revealed the unity of the spiritual life. We recog- 
nize it only when we place ourselves in intuition in 
order to go from intuition to the intellect, for from 
the intellect we shall never pass to intuition. 

Philosophy introduces us thus into the spiritual 
life. And it shows us at the same time the relation 
of the life of the spirit to that of the body. The 
great error of the doctrines on the spirit has been 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 437 

the idea that by isolating the spiritual life from all 
the rest, by suspending it in space as high as pos- 
sible above the earth, they were placing it beyond 
attack, as if they were not thereby simply exposing 
it to be taken as an effect of mirage ! Certainly they 
are right to listen to conscience when conscience 
affirms human freedom ; but the intellect is there, 
which says that the cause determines its effect, that 
like conditions like, that all is repeated and that all 
is given. They are right to believe in the absolute 
reality of the person and in his independence toward 
matter; but science is there, which shows the inter- 
dependence of conscious life and cerebral activity. 
They are right to attribute to man a privileged place 
in nature, to hold that the distance is infinite be- 
tween the animal and man; but the history of life 
is there, which makes us witness the genesis of 
species by gradual transformation, and seems thus 
to reintegrate man in animality. When a strong 
instinct assures the probability of personal survival, 
they are right not to close their ears to its voice; 
but if there exist "souls" capable of an independent 
life, whence do they come? When, how and why 
do they enter into this body which we see arise, 
quite naturally, from a mixed cell derived from the 
bodies of its two parents? All these questions will 
remain unanswered, a philosophy of intuition will 
be a negation of science, will be sooner or later swept 
away by science, if it does not resolve to see the 
life of the body just where it really is, on the road 
that leads to the life of the spirit. But it will then 
no longer have to do with definite living beings. Life 
as a whole, from the initial .impulsion that thrust 

29 



438 Readings in Philosophy 

it into the world, will appear as a wave which rises, 
and which is opposed by the descending movement 
of matter. On the greater part of its surface, at dif- 
ferent heights, the current is converted by matter 
into a vortex. At one point alone it passes freely, 
dragging with it the obstacle which will weigh on 
its progress but will not stop it. At this point is 
humanity; it is our privileged situation. On the 
other hand, this rising wave is consciousness, and, 
like all consciousness, it includes potentialities with- 
out number which interpenetrate and to which con- 
sequently neither the category of unity nor that of 
multiplicity is appropriate, made as they both are 
for inert matter. The matter that it bears along 
with it, and in the interstices of which it inserts it- 
self, alone can divide it into distinct individualities. 
On flows the current, running through human gen- 
erations, subdividing itself into individuals. This 
subdivision was vaguely indicated in it, but could 
not have been made clear without matter. Thus 
souls are continually being created, which, neverthe- 
less, in a certain sense pre-existed. They are noth- 
ing else than the little rills into which the great river 
of life divides itself, flowing through the body of 
humanity. The movement of the stream is distinct 
from the river bed, although it must adopt its wind- 
ing course. Consciousness is distinct from the or- 
ganism it animates, although it must undergo its 
vicissitudes. As the possible actions which a state 
of consciousness indicates are at every instant begin- 
ning to be carried out in the nervous centres, the 
brain underlies at every instant the motor indica- 
tions of the state of consciousness; but the inter- 



The Problem of Evolution and Teleology 439 

dependency of consciousness and brain is limited to 
this ; the destiny of consciousness is not bound up 
on that account with the destiny of cerebral matter. 
Finally, consciousness is essentially free; it is free- 
dom itself; but it cannot pass through matter with- 
out settling on it, without adapting itself to it: this 
adaptation is what we call intellectuality ; and the 
intellect, turning itself back toward active, that is 
to say free, consciousness, naturally makes it enter 
into the conceptual forms into which it is accus- 
tomed to see matter fit. It will therefore always 
perceive freedom in the form of necessity; it will 
always neglect the part of novelty or of creation in- 
herent in the free act; it will always substitute for 
action itself an imitation artificial, approximative, 
obtained by compounding the old with the old and 
the same with the same. Thus, to the eyes of a 
philosophy that attempts to reabsorb intellect in in- 
tuition, many difficulties vanish or become light. But 
such a doctrine does not only facilitate speculation ; 
it gives us also more power to act and to live. For, 
with it, we feel ourselves no longer isolated in hu- 
manity, humanity no longer seems isolated in the 
nature that it dominates. As the smallest grain of 
dust is bound up with our entire solar system, drawn 
along with it in that undivided movement of descent 
which is materiality itself, so all organized beings, 
from the humblest to the highest, from the first 
origins of life to the time in which we are, and in 
all places as in all times, do but evidence a single im- 
pulsion, the inverse of the movement of matter, and 
in itself indivisible. All the living hold together, 
and all yield to the same tremendous push. The 



440 Readings in Philosophy 

animal takes its stand on the plant, man bestrides 
animality, and the whole of humanity, in space and 
in time, is one immense army galloping beside and 
before and behind each of us in an overwhelming 
charge able to beat down every resistance and clear 
the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE SELF 

A. The Original Datum of Knowledge. 

The place which Descartes assigns to the self in 
reality is important for his own philosophy, and his 
view has been very influential historically in other 
systems : 

P will make an effort, and try anew the same path 
on which I had entered yesterday, that is, proceed 
by casting aside all that admits of the slightest 
doubt, not less than if I had discovered it to be 
absolutely false; and I will continue always in this 
track until I shall find something that is certain, or 
at least, if I can do nothing more, until I shall know 
with certainty that there is nothing certain. Arch- 
imedes, that he might transport the entire globe 
from the place it occupied to another, demanded 
only a point that was firm and immoveable ; so also, 
I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expecta- 
tions, if I am fortunate enough to discover only one 
thing that is certain and indubitable. 

I suppose, accordingly, that all the things which 
I see are false (fictitious) ; I believe that none of 
those objects which my fallacious memory represents 
ever existed; I suppose that I possess no senses; I 
believe that body, figure, extension, motion, and place 
are merely fictions of my mind. What is there, then. 



'^ Descartes, from Meditations, II; edition previously cited. 
(441) 



442 Readings in Philosophy 

that can be esteemed true? Perhaps this only, that 
there is absolutely nothing certain. 

But how do I know that there is not something 
different altogether from the objects I have now 
enumerated, of which it is impossible to entertain 
the slightest doubt? Is there not a God, or some 
being, by whatever name I may designate him, who 
causes these thoughts to arise in my mind? But 
why suppose such a being, for it may be I myself 
am capable of producing them? Am I, then, at 
least not something? But I before denied that I 
possessed senses or a body ; I hesitate, however, for 
what follows from that? Am I so dependent on the 
body and the senses that without these I cannot 
exist? But I had the persuasion that there was ab- 
solutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky 
and no earth, neither minds nor bodies ; was I not, 
therefore, at the same time, persuaded that I did not 
exist? Far from it; I assuredly existed, since I was 
persuaded. But there is I know not what being, 
who is possessed at once of the highest power and 
the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all 
his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I 
exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as 
he may, he can never bring it about that I am noth- 
ing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am some- 
thing. So that it must, in fine, be maintained, all 
things being maturely and carefully considered, that 
this proposition (proivimciatum) I am, I exist, is 
necessarily true each time it is expressed by me, or 
conceived in my mind. 

Can I affirm that I possess any one of all those 
attributes of which I have lately spoken as belonging 



The Self • 443 

to the nature of body? After attentively consider- 
ing them in my own mind, I find none of them that 
can properly be said to belong to myself. To re- 
count them were idle and tedious. Let us pass, 
then, to the attributes of the soul. The first men- 
tioned were the powers of nutrition and walking; 
but, if it be true that I have no body, it is true like- 
wise that I am capable neither of walking nor of 
being nourished. Perception is another attribute of 
the soul ; but perception too is impossible without 
the body : besides, I have frequently, during sleep, 
believed that I perceived objects which I afterwards 
observed I did not in reality perceive. Thinking is 
another attribute of the soul ; and here I discover 
what properly belongs to myself. This alone is in- 
separable from me. I am — I exist : this is certain ; 
but how often ? As often as I think ; for perhaps it 
would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, 
that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. 
I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true : I 
am therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking 
thing, that is, a mind {ruens sive animus), under- 
standing, or reason, — terms whose signification was 
before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing, 
and really existent; but what thing? The answer 
was, a thinking thing. The question now arises, am 
I aught besides? I will stimulate my imagination 
with a view to discover whether I am not still more 
than a thinking being. Now it is plain I am not 
the assemblage of members called the human body; 
I am not a thin and penetrating air diffused through 
all these members, or wind, or flame, or vapour, or 
breath, or any of all the things I can imagine; for 



444 Readings in Philosophy 

I supposed that all these were not, and, without 
changing the supposition, I find that I still feel as- 
sured of my existence. 

B. Skeptical Doubts About the Existence of 
THE Self. 

The classic passage in which Hume challenges the 
proofs of the existence of the self is the following: 

There' are some philosophers, who imagine we are 
every moment intimately conscious of what we call 
our self; that we feel its existence and its continu- 
ance in existence; and are certain, beyond the evi- 
dence of a demonstration, both of its perfect identity 
and simplicity. The strongest sensation, the most 
violent passion, say they, instead of distracting us 
from this view, only fix it the more intensely, and 
make us consider their influence on self either by 
their pain or pleasure. To attempt a further proof 
of this were to weaken its evidence ; since no proof 
can be derived from any fact of which we are so 
intimately conscious ; nor is there any thing, of 
which we can be certain, if we doubt of this. 

Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary 
to that very experience which is pleaded for them; 
nor have we any idea of self, after the manner it is 
here explained. For, from what impression could 
this idea be derived? This question it is impossible 
to answer without a manifest contradiction and ab- 
surdity; and yet it is a question which must neces- 
sarily be answered, if we would have the idea of 



' Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Sec- 
tion vi; edition of 1854. 



The Self 445 

self pass for clear and intelligible. It must be some 
one impression that gives rise to every real idea. 
But self or person is not any one impression, but 
that to which our several impressions and ideas are 
supposed to have a reference. If any impression 
gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must 
continue invariably the same, through the whole 
course of our lives ; since self is supposed to exist 
after that manner. But there is no impression 
constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief 
and joy, passions and sensation succeed each other, 
and never all exist at the same time. It cannot 
therefore be from any of these impressions, or from 
any other, that the idea of self is derived ; and con- 
sequently there is no such idea. 

But further, what must become of all our particu- 
lar perceptions upon this hypothesis ? All these are 
different, and distinguishable, and separable from 
each other, and may be separately considered, and 
may exist separately, and have no need of anything 
to support their existence. After what manner 
therefore do they belong to self, and how are they 
connected with it ? For my part, when I enter most 
intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble 
on some particular perception or other, of heat or 
cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. 
I never can catch myself at any time without a per- 
ception, and never can observe any thing but the 
perception. When my perceptions are removed for 
any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insensible 
of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And 
were all my perceptions removed by death, and could 
I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate. 



446 Readings in Philosophy 

after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely 
annihilated, nor do I conceive what is further 
requisite to make me a perfect nonentity. If any 
one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks 
he has a diff'erent notion of himself, I must confess 
I can no longer reason with him. All I can allow 
him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and 
that we are essentially different in this particular. 
He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and 
continued, which he calls himself; though I am cer- 
tain there is no such principle in me. 

But setting aside some metaphysicians of this 
kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, 
that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of 
different perceptions, which succeed each other with 
an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual 
flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their 
sockets without varying our perceptions. Our 
thought is still more variable than our sight; and 
all our other senses and faculties contribute to this 
change; nor is there any single power of the soul, 
which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for one 
moment. The mind is' a kind of theatre, where 
several perceptions successively make their appear- 
ance; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an 
infinite variety of postures and situations. There 
is properly no simjjlicity in it at one time, nor 
identity in different, whatever natural propension 
we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. 
The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. 
They are the successive preceptions only, that con- 
stitute the mind ; nor have we the most distant 



The Self 447 

notion of the place where these scenes are repre- 
sented, or of the materials of which it is composed. 

What then gives us so great a propension to 
ascribe an identity to these successive perceptions, 
and to suppose ourselves possessed of an invariable 
and uninterrupted existence through the whole 
course of our lives? In order to answer this ques- 
tion, we must distinguish betwixt personal identity, 
as it regards our thought or imagination, and as it 
regards our passions or the concern we take in our- 
selves. The first is our present subject; and to ex- 
plain it perfectly we must take the matter pretty 
deep, and account for that identity, which we attrib- 
ute to plants and animals ; there being a great an- 
alogy betwixt it and the identity of a self or person. 

We have a distinct idea of an object that remains 
invariable and uninterrupted through a supposed 
variation of time ; and this idea we call that of iden- 
tity or sameness. We have also a distinct idea of 
several different objects existing in succession, and 
connected together by a close relation ; and this to an 
accurate view affords as perfect a notion of diver- 
sity, as if there was no manner of relation among 
the objects. But though these two ideas of identity, 
and a succession of related objects, be in themselves 
perfectly distinct, and even contrary, yet it is cer- 
tain that, in our common way of thinking, they are 
generally confounded with each other. That action 
of the imagination, by which we consider the unin- 
terrupted and invariable object, and that by which 
we reflect on the succession of related objects, are 
almost the same to the feelings; nor is there much 
more effort of thought required in the latter case 



448 Readings in Philosophy 

than in the former. The relation facilitates the 
transition of the mind from one object to another, 
and renders its passage as smooth as if it contem- 
plated one continued object. This resemblance is the 
cause of the confusion and mistake, and makes us 
substitute the notion of identity, instead of that of 
related objects. However at one instant we may 
consider the related succession as variable or inter- 
rupted, we are sure the next to ascribe to it a per- 
fect identity, and regard it as invariable and unin- 
terrupted. Our propensity to this mistake is so 
great from the resemblance above mentioned, that 
we fall into it before we are aware; and though we 
incessantly correct ourselves by reflection, and re- 
turn to a more accurate method of thinking, yet we 
cannot long sustain our philosophy, or take off this 
bias from the imagination. Our last resource is to 
yield to it, and boldly assert that these different re- 
lated objects are in effect the same, however inter- 
rupted and variable. In order to justify to ourselves 
this absurdity, we often feign some new and unintel- 
ligible principle, that connects the objects together, 
and prevents their interruption and variation. 
Thus, we feign the continued existence of the per- 
ceptions of our senses, to remove the interruption ; 
and run into the notion of the soul, and self, and 
substance, to disguise the variation. But, we may 
further observe, that where we do not give rise to 
such a fiction, our propension to confound identity 
with relation is so great, that we are apt to imagine 
something unknown and mysterious, connecting the 
parts, beside their relation ; and this I take to be the 
case with regard to the identity we ascribe to plants 



The Self 449 

and vegetables. And even when this does not take 
place, we still feel a propensity to confound these 
ideas, though we are not able fully to satisfy our- 
selves in that particular, nor find anything invariable 
and uninterrupted to justify our notion of identity. 

Thus, the controversy concerning identity is not 
merely a dispute of words. For, when we attribute 
identity, in an improper sense, to variable or inter- 
rupted objects, our mistake is not confined to the ex- 
pression, but is commonly attended with a fiction, 
either of something invariable and uninterrupted, or 
of something mysterious and inexplicable, or at least 
with a propensity to such fictions. What will suffice 
to prove this hypothesis to the satisfaction of every 
fair inquirer, is to show, from daily experience and 
observation, that the objects which are variable or 
interrupted, and yet are supposed to continue the 
same, are such only as consist of a succession of 
parts, connected together by resemblance, contiguity, 
or causation. For as such a succession answers evi- 
dently to our notion of diversity, it can only \>e by 
mistake we ascribe to it an identity ; and as the rela- 
tion of parts, which leads us into this mistake, is 
really but a quality, which produces an association of 
ideas, and an easy transition of the imagination from 
one to another, it can only be from the resemblance, 
which this act of the mind bears to that by which 
we contemplate one continued object, that the error 
arises. Our chief business, then, must be to prove, 
that all objects, to which we ascribe identity, without 
observing their invariableness and uninterrupted- 
ness, are such as consist of a succession of related 
objects. 



450 Readings in Philoso2:)hy 

In order to this, suppose any mass of matter, 
of which the parts are contiguous and connected, to 
be placed before us ; it is plain we must attribute a 
perfect identity to this mass, provided all the parts 
continue uninterruptedly and invariably the same, 
whatever motion or change of place wq may observe 
either in the whole or in any of the parts. But sup- 
posing some very small inconsiderable part to be 
added to the mass, or subtracted from it; though 
this absolutely destroys the identity of the whole, 
strictly speaking, yet as we seldom think so accu- 
rately, we scruple not to pronounce a mass of matter 
the same, where we find so trivial an alteration. The 
passage of thought from the object before the change 
to the object after it, is so smooth and easy, that we 
scarce perceive the transition, and are apt to imagine 
that it is nothing but a continued survey of the same 
object. 

There is a very remarkable circumstance that at- 
tends this experiment; which is, that though the 
change of any considerable part in a mass of; matter 
destroys the identity of the whole, yet we must 
measure the greatness of the part, not absolutely, 
but by its propo7'tio7i to the whole. The addition or 
diminution of a mountain would not be sufficient to 
produce a diversity in a planet; though the change 
of a very few inches would be able to destroy the 
identity of some bodies. It will be impossible to ac- 
count for this, but by reflecting that objects operate 
upon the mind, and break or interrupt the continuity 
of its actions, not according to their real greatness, 
but according to their proportion to each other; and 
therefore, since this interruption makes an object 



The Self 451 

cease to appeai: the same, it must be the interrupted 
progress of the thought which constitutes the imper- 
fect identity. 

This may be confirmed by another phenomenon. 
A change in any considerable part of a body destroys 
its identity; but it is remarkable, that where the 
change is produced gradually and insensibly, we are 
less apt to ascribe to it the same effect. The reason 
can plainly be no other, than that the mind, in fol- 
lowing the successive changes of the body, feels an 
easy passage from the surveying its condition in one 
moment, to the viewing of it in another, and in no 
particular time perceives any interruption in its ac- 
tions. From which continued perception, it ascribes 
a continued existence and identity to the object. 

But whatever precaution we may use in introduc- 
ing the changes gradually, and making them propor- 
tionable to the whole, it is certain, that where the 
changes are at last observed to become considerable, 
we make a scruple of ascribing identity to such dif- 
ferent objects. There is, however, another artifice, 
by which we may induce the imagination to advance 
a step further ; and that is, by producing a reference 
of the parts to each other, and a combination to some 
common end or purpose. A ship, of which a consid- 
erable part has been changed by frequent repara- 
tions, is still considered as the same ; nor does the 
difference of the materials hinder us from ascribing 
an identity to it. The common end, in which the 
parts conspire, is the same under all their variations, 
and affords an easy transition of the imagination 
from one situation of the body to another. 



452 Readings in Philosophy 

But this is still more remarkable, when we add a 
sympathy of parts to their common end, and suppose 
that they bear to each other the reciprocal relation 
of cause and effect in all their operations and actions. 
This is the case with all animals and vegetables ; 
where not only the several parts have a reference to 
some general purpose, but also a mutual depend- 
ence on, and connection with, each other. The effect 
of so strong a relation is, that though every one must 
allow, that in a very few years both vegetables and 
animals endure a total change, yet we still attribute 
identity to them, while their form, size, and sub- 
stance, are entirely altered. An oak that grows 
from a small plant to a large tree is still the same 
oak, though there be not one particle of matter or 
figure of its parts the same. An infant becomes a 
man, and is sometimes fat, sometimes lean, without 
any change in his identity. 

We may also consider the two following phe- 
nomena, which are remarkable in their kind. The 
first is, that though we commonly be able to distin- 
guish pretty exactly betwixt numerical and specific 
identity, yet it sometimes happens that we confound 
them, and in our thinking and reasoning employ the 
one for the other. Thus, a man who hears a noise 
that is frequently interrupted and renewed, says it 
is still the same noise, though it is evident the sounds 
have only a specific identity or resemblance, and 
there is nothing numerically the same but the cause 
which produced them. In like manner it may be 
said, without breach of the propriety of language, 
that such a church, which was formerly of brick, 
fell to ruin, and that the parish rebuilt the same 



The Self 453 

church of freestone, and according to modern archi- 
tecture. Here neither the form nor materials are 
the same nor is there any thing common to the two 
objects but their relation to the inhabitants of the 
parish ; and yet this alone is sufficient to make us 
denominate them the same. But we must observe, 
that in these cases the first object is in a manner 
annihilated before the second comes into existence, 
by which means, we are never presented, in any one 
point of time, with the idea of difference and multi- 
plicity; and for that reason are less scrupulous in 
calling them the same. 

Secondly, we may remark, that though, in a suc- 
cession of related objects, it be in a manner requisite 
that the change of parts be not sudden nor entire, 
in order to preserve the identity, yet where the ob- 
jects are in their nature changeable and inconstant, 
we adm.it of a more sudden transition than would 
otherwise be consistent with that relation. Thus, 
as the nature of a river consists in the motion and 
change of parts, though in less than four-and-twenty 
hours these be totally altered, this hinders not the 
river from continuing the same during several ages. 
What is natural and essential to any thing is, in a 
manner, expected ; and what is expected makes less 
impression, and appears of less moment than what is 
unusual and extraordinary. A considerable change 
of the former kind seems really less to the imagina- 
tion than the most trivial alteration of the latter; 
and by breaking less the continuity of the thought, 
has less influence in destroying the identity. 

We now proceed to explain the nature of personal 
identity, which has become so great a question in 

30 



454 Readings in Philosophy 

philosophy, especially of late years, in England, 
where all the abstruser sciences are studied with a 
peculiar ardor and application. And here it is evi- 
dent the same method of reasoning must be con- 
tinued which has so successfully explained the iden- 
tity of plants, and animals, and ships, and houses, 
and of all compounded and changeable productions 
either of art or nature. The identity which we 
ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious one, 
and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to 
vegetable and animal bodies. It cannot therefore 
have a different origin, but must proceed from a like 
operation of the imagination upon like objects. 

But lest this argument should not convince the 
reader, though in my opinion perfectly decisive, let 
him weigh the following reasoning, which is still 
closer and more immediate. It is evident that the 
identity which we attribute to the human mind, how- 
ever perfect we may imagine it to be, is not able to 
run the several different perceptions into one, and 
make them lose their characters of distinction and 
difference, which are essential to them. It is still 
true that every distinct perception which enters into 
the composition of the mind, is a distinct existence, 
and is different, and distinguishable, and separable 
from every other perception, either contemporary or 
successive. But as, notwithstanding this distinction 
and separability, we suppose the whole train of per- 
ceptions to be united by identity, a question nat- 
urally arises concerning this relation of identity, 
whether it be something that really binds our sev- 
eral perceptions together, or only associates their 
ideas in the imagination ; that is, in other words, 



The Self 455 

whether, in pronouncing concerning the identity of 
a person, we observe some real bond among his per- 
ceptions, or only feel one among the ideas we form 
of them. This question we might easily decide, if 
we would recollect what has been already proved at 
large, that the understanding never observes any 
real connection among objects, and that even the 
union of cause and effect, when strictly examined, 
resolves itself into a customary association of ideas. 
For from thence it evidently follows, that identity 
is nothing really belonging to these different per- 
ceptions, and uniting them together, but is merely a 
quality which we attribute to them, because of the 
union of their ideas in the imagination when we re- 
flect upon them. Now, the only qualities which can 
give ideas a union in the imagination, are these three 
above mentioned. These are the uniting principles 
in the. ideal world, and without them every distinct 
object is separable by the mind, and may be sepa- 
rately considered, and appears not to have any more 
connection with another object than if disjoined by 
the greatest difference and remoteness. It is there- 
fore on some of these three relations of resemblance, 
contiguity, and causation, that identity depends ; and 
as the very essence of these relations consists in their 
producing an easy transition of ideas, it follows, that 
our nations of personal identity proceed entirely 
from the smooth and uninterrupted progress of the 
thought along a train of connected ideas, according 
to the principles above explained. 

The only question, therefore, which remains is, by 
what relations this uninterrupted progress of our 
thought is produced, when we consider the succes- 



456 Readings in Philosophy 

sive existence of a mind or thinking person. And 
here it is evident we must confine ourselves to re- 
semblance and causation, and must drop contiguity, 
which has little or no influence in the present case. 

To begin with resemblance; suppose we could see 
clearly into the breast of another, and observe that 
succession of perceptions which constitutes his mind 
or thinking principle, and suppose that he always 
preserves the memory of a considerable part of past 
perceptions, it is evident that nothing could more 
contribute to the bestowing a relation on this suc- 
cession amidst all its variations. For what is the 
memory but a faculty, by which we raise up the 
images of past perceptions? And as an image 
necessarily resembles its object, must not the fre- 
quent placing of these resembling perceptions in the 
chain of thought, convey the imagination more 
easily from one link to another, and make the whole 
seem like the continuance of one object? In this 
particular, then, the memory not only discovers the 
identity, but also contributes to its production, by 
producing the relation of resemblance among the 
perceptions. The case is the same, whether we con- 
sider ourselves or others. 

As to causation; we may observe, that the true 
idea of the human mind, is to consider it as a system 
of different perceptions or different existences, 
which are linked together by the relation of cause 
and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, 
and modify each other. Our impressions give rise 
to their correspondent ideas ; and these ideas, in 
their turn, produce other impressions. One thought 
chases another, and draws after it a third, by which 



The Self 457 

it is expelled in its turn. In this respect, I cannot 
compare the soul more properly to any thing than 
to a republic or commonwealth, in which the several 
members are united by the reciprocal ties of govern- 
ment and subordination, and give rise to other per- 
sons who propagate the same republic in the inces- 
sant changes of its parts. And as the same in- 
dividual republic may not only change its members, 
but also its laws and constitutions; in like manner 
the same person may vary his character and disposi- 
tion, as well as his impressions and ideas, without 
losing his identity. Whatever changes he endures, 
his several parts are still connected by the rela- 
tion of causation. And in this view our identity 
with regard to the passions serves to corroborate 
that with regard to the imagination, by the making 
our distant perceptions influence each other, and by 
giving us a present concern for our past or future 
pains or pleasures. 

As memory alone acquaints us with the continu- 
ance and extent of this succession of perceptions, 
it is to be considered, upon that account chiefly, as 
the source of personal identity. Had we no mem- 
ory, we never should have any notion of causation, 
nor consequently of that chain of causes and effects, 
which constitute our self or person. But having 
once acquired this notion of causation from the 
memory, we can extend the same chain of causes, 
and consequently the identity of our persons beyond 
our memory, and can comprehend times, and cir- 
cumstances, and actions, which we have entirely 
forgot, but suppose in general to have existed. For 
how few of our past actions are there, of which we 



458 Readings in Philosophy 

have any meanory? Who can tell me, for instance, 
what were his thoughts and actions on the first day 
of January, 1715, the eleventh of March, 1719, and 
the third of August, 1733? Or will he affirm, be- 
cause he has entirely forgot the incidents of these 
days, that the present self is not the same person 
with the self of that time ; and by that means over- 
turn all the most established notions of personal 
identity? In this view, therefore, memory does 
not so much produce as discover personal identity, 
by showing us the relation of cause and effect among 
our different perceptions. It will be incumbent on 
those who affirm that memory produces entirely our 
personal identity, to give a reason why we can thus 
extend our personal identity beyond our memor>\ 
The whole of this doctrine leads us to a conclu- 
sion, which is of great importance in the present 
affair, viz. : that all the nice and subtile questions 
concerning personal identity can never possibly be de- 
cided, and are to be regarded rather as grammatical 
than as philosophical difficulties. Identity depends 
upon the relations of ideas ; and these relations pro- 
duce identity, by means of that easy transition they 
Oijcasion. But as the relations, and the easiness of 
the transition may diminish by insensible degrees, 
we have no just standard by which we can decide 
any dispute concerning the time when they acquire 
or lose a title to the name of identity. All the dis- 
putes concerning the identity of connected objects 
are merely verbal, except so far as the relation of 
parts gives rise to some fiction or imaginary prin- 
ciple of union, as we have already observed. 



The Self 459 

What I have said concerning the first origin and 
uncertainty of our notion of identity, as applied to 
the human mind, may be extended with little or no 
variation to that of simplicity. An object, whose 
different coexistent parts are bound together by a 
close relation, operates upon the imagination after 
much the same manner as one perfectly simple and 
indivisible, and requires not a much greater stretch 
of thought in order to its conception. From this 
similarity of operation we attribute a simplicity to 
it, and feign a principle of union as the support of 
this simplicity, and the center of all the different 
parts and qualities of the object. 

C. The Synthetic Unity of Apperception. 

The unity of the self is regarded by Kant as the 
essential precondition to all unity of experience. He 
states his view in the important passages here 
given : 

It' would be quite a sufficient deduction of the cate- 
gories, and justification of their objective applica- 
tion, to show that, apart from them, no object what- 
ever is capable of being thought. But there are 
two reasons why a fuller deduction is advisable: 
firstly, because, in thinking an object, other faculties 
besides understanding, or the faculty of thought 
proper, come into play ; and, secondly, because it has 
to be explained how understanding can possibly be 
a condition of the knowledge of real objects. We 
must, therefore, begin with a consideration of the 



" Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Watson's Selections, pages 
56-71; edition previously cited. 



460 Readings in Philosophy 

primary activities of the subject that are essential 
in the constitution of experience ; and these we must 
view, not in their empirical, but in their transcen- 
dental character. 

If consciousness were broken up into a number of 
mutually repellent states, each isolated and sepa- 
rated from the rest, knowledge would never arise 
in u^ at all, for knowledge is a whole of related and 
connected elements. When, therefore, I call sensible 
perception a synopsis, in order to mark the com- 
plexity of its content, it must be remembered that 
in this synopsis a certain synthesis is implied, and 
that knowledge is possible only if spontaneity is 
combined with receptivity. This is the reason why 
we must say that in all knowledge there is a three- 
fold synthesis: firstly, the apprehension in percep- 
tion of various ideas, or modifications of the mind ; 
secondly, their reproduction in imagination; and, 
thirdly, their recognition in conception. These 
three forms of synthesis point to three sources of 
knowledge, which make understanding itself pos- 
sible, and through it all experience as an empirical 
product of understanding. 

1. Synthesis of Apprehension in Perception. 

Whatever may be the origin of our ideas, whether 
they are due to the influence of external things or 
are produced by internal causes, whether as objects 
they have their source a priori or in experience, as 
modifications of the mind they must all belong to 
the inner sense. All knowledge is, therefore, at 
bottom subject to time as the formal condition of 
inner sense, and in time every part of it without 



The Self 461 

exception must be ordered, connected, and brought 
into relation with every other part. This is a gen- 
eral remark, which must be kept in mind in the 
whole of our subsequent inquiry. 

We should not be conscious of the various determi- 
nations that every perception contains within itself 
'were we not, in the succession of our impressions, 
conscious of time. If each feeling were limited to 
a single moment, it would be an absolutely individual 
unit. In order that the various determinations of 
a perception, as, for instance, the parts of a line, 
should form a unity, it is necessary that they should 
be run over and held together by the mind. This 
act I call the synthesis of apprehension. It is ap- 
p7^ehension, because it goes straight to perception ; 
it is synthesis, because only by synthesis can the 
various elements of perception be united in one ob- 
ject of consciousness. 

Now, this synthesis of apprehension must be em- 
ployed a priori also, or in relation to determinations 
not given in sensible experience. Otherwise we 
should have no consciousness of space and time a 
priori, for these can be produced only by a synthesis 
of the various determinations that are presented by 
sensibility in its original receptivity. There is 
therefore a pure synthesis of apprehension. 

2. Synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination. 

There is an empirical law of the association of 
ideas. When any two ideas have often followed, or 
accompanied each other, an association between 
them is at last formed, and they are so connected 
that, even when an object is not present, the mind 



462 Readings in Philoso'phy 

passes from the one to the other in conformity with 
a fixed rule. But this law of reproduction presup- 
poses that phenomena are themselves actually sub- 
ject to such a rule, and that the various elements in 
these phenomena of which we are conscious should 
accompany or follow one another in accordance with 
certain rules. On any other supposition our em- 
pirical imagination would have nothing to reproduce 
in any way conforming to its own nature, and would 
therefore lie hidden in the depths of the mind as a 
dead, and to us unknown faculty. Were cinnabar, 
for instance, sometimes red and sometimes black, 
sometimes light and sometimes heavy; or were the 
same name given at one time to this object, and at 
another time to that, without the least regard to any 
rule implied in the nature of the phenomena them- 
selves, there could be no empirical synthesis of 
reproduction. 

There must, therefore, be something which makes 
the reproduction of phenomena possible at all, some- 
thing which is the a priori ground of a necessary 
synthetic unity. That this is so, we may at once 
see, if we reflect that phenomena are not things in 
themselves, but are merely the play of our own 
ideas, and therefore at bottom determinations of the 
inner sense. Now, if we can show that even our 
purest a 'priori perceptions can yield knowledge, 
only in so far as they involve such a combination as 
makes a thoroughgoing synthesis of reproduction 
possible, we may conclude that this synthesis of 
imagination, being prior to all experience, rests upon 
a priori principles. We must then assume a pure 
transcendental synthesis as the necessary condition 



The Self 463 

of all experience, for experience is impossible unless 
phenomena are capablq of being reproduced. Now, 
if I draw a line in thought, or think of the time from 
one day to another, or even think of a certain num- 
ber, it is plain that I must be conscious of the various 
determinations one after the other. But if the 
earlier determinations — the prior parts of the line, 
the antecedent moments of time, the units as they 
arise one after the other — were to drop out of my 
consciousness, and could not be reproduced when I 
passed on to the later determinations, I should never 
be conscious of a whole; and hence not even the sim- 
plest and most elementary idea of space or time 
could arise in my consciousness. 

The synthesis of reproduction is therefore in- 
separably bound up with the synthesis of apprehen- 
sion. And as the synthesis of apprehension is the 
transcendental ground of the possibility of all knowl- 
edge — of pure a priori as well as empirical knowl- 
edge — the reproductive synthesis of imagination 
belongs to the transcendental functions of the mind, 
and may therefore be called the transcendental 
faculty of imagination. 

3. Synthesis of Recognition in Conceptions'. 
Were I not conscious that what I think now is 
identical with what I thought a moment ago, all re- 
production in the series of ideas would be useless. 
The idea reproduced at a given moment would be 
for me a perfectly new idea. There would be no 
identical consciousness bound up with the act of 
producing one idea after another; and as without 
such consciousness there could be for me no unity. 



464 Readings in Philosophy 

I should never be conscious of the various members 
of the series as forming one whole. If, in count- 
ing, I should forget that the units lying before my 
mind had been added by me one after the other, I 
should not be aware that a sum was being produced 
or generated in the successive addition of unit to 
unit ; and as the conception of the sum is simply the 
consciousness of this unity of synthesis, I should 
have no knowledge of the number. 

At this point it is necessary to have a clear idea 
of what we mean by an object of consciousness. We 
have seen that a phenomenon is just a sensation of 
which we are conscious, and that no sensation can be 
said to exist by itself as an object outside of con- 
sciousness. What, then, do we mean when we speak 
of an object as corresponding to our knowledge, and 
therefore as distinct from it? It is easy to see that 
this object can be thought of only as something = x, 
for there is nothing beyond knowledge that we can 
set up as contrasted with knowledge, and yet as cor- 
responding to it. 

It is plain that in knowledge we have to do with 
nothing but the various determinations of our own 
consciousness ; hence the object = x, which cor- 
responds to these determinations, if it is supposed 
to be distinct from every object of consciousness, is 
for us nothing at all. The unity which the object 
demands can be only the formal unity of conscious- 
ness in the synthesis of its various determinations. 
In saying that we know the object, we mean that 
we have introduced synthetic unity into the various 
determinations of perception. But this is impos- 
sible, if the perception could not be produced by a 



The Self 465 

function of synthesis, which, in conforming to a 
rule, makes the reproduction of those determinations 
a priori necessary, and renders possible a conception 
that unites them. 

There can be no knowledge without a conception, 
however indefinite or obscure it may be, and a con- 
ception is in form always a universal that serves as 
a rule. The conception of body, for instance, as a 
unity of the various determinations thought in it, 
serves as a rule in our knowledge of external 
phenomena. Now, it is always a transcendental 
condition that lies at the foundation of that which 
is necessary. There must, therefore, be a transcen- 
dental ground of the unity of consciousness in the 
synthesis of the various determinations implied in 
every perception ; and this ground must be necessary 
to the conception of any object whatever, and there- 
fore to the conception of every object of experience. 
In no other way can there be any object for our 
perceptions; for the object is nothing but that some- 
thing =r X, the conception of which involves neces- 
sity of synthesis. 

This original and transcendental condition is just 
transcendental apperception. The consciousness, 
in internal perception, of oneself as determined to 
certain states, is merely empirical, and is always 
changing. In the flux of inner phenomena there can 
be no unchanging or permanent self. This form of 
self-consciousness is usually called imier sense or 
empirical apperception. Now, from empirical data 
it is impossible to derive the conception of that 
which must necessayily be numerically identical. 



466 Readings in Philosophy 

What we require, in explanation of such a transcen- 
dental presupposition, is a condition that precedes 
all experience, and makes it possible. 

No knowledge whatever, no unity and connection 
of objects, is possible for us, apart from that unity 
of consciousness which is prior to all data of per- 
ception, and without relation to which no conscious- 
ness of objects is possible. This pure, original, un- 
changeable consciousness I call transcendental ap- 
perception. That this is the proper name for it is 
evident, were it only that even the purest objective 
unity, that of the a jyriori conceptions of space and 
time, is possible only in so far as perceptions are 
related to it. The numerical unity of this appercep- 
tion is, therefore, just as much the a priori founda- 
tion of all conceptions as the various determinations 
of space and, time are the a priori foundation of the 
perceptions of sense. 

It is this transcendental unity of apperception 
which connects all the possible phenomena that can 
be gathered together in one experience, and subjects 
them to laws. There could be no such unity of 
consciousness were the mind not able to be conscious 
of the identity of function, by which it unites various 
phenomena in one knowledge. , The original and 
necessary consciousness of the identity of oneself 
is at the same time the consciousness of a necessary 
unity in the synthesis of all phenomena according 
to conceptions. These conceptions are necessary 
rules, which not only make phenomena capable of 
reproduction, but determine perception as percep- 
tion of an object, that is, bring it under a concep- 
tion of something in which various determinations 



The Self 467 

are necessarily connected together. It would be 
impossible for the mind to think itself as identical 
in its various determinations, and indeed to think 
that identity a priori, if it did not hold the identity 
of its own act before its eyes, and if it did not, by 
subjecting to a transcendental unity all the synthesis 
of empirical apprehension, make the connection of 
the various determinations implied in that synthesis 
possible in accordance with a priori rules. 

15. Possibility of any Covibination luhatever. 

Though a perception is merely sensuous or re- 
ceptive, the various determinations of consciousness 
may be given, while the form, as simply the way in 
which the subject is affected, may lie a priori in the 
mind. But the combination (conjunctio) of those 
determinations can never come to us through the 
medium of sense, and therefore cannot be contained 
even in the pure form of sensible perception. Com- 
bination is a spontaneous act of consciousness, and, 
as such, it is the especial characteristic of under- 
standing, as distinguished from sense. All com- 
bination, therefore, whether we are aware of it or 
not, whether it is a combination of the various de- 
terminations of perception or of several conceptions, 
and whether the determinations of perception are 
empirical or pure, is an act of understanding. This 
act w^e call by the general name of synthesis, to 
draw attention to the fact that we can be conscious 
of nothing as combined in the object, which we have 
not ourselves previously combined. And as it pro- 
ceeds entirely from the self-activity of the subject, 
combination is the element, and the only element, 



468 Readings in Philosoiihy 

that cannot be given by the object. It is easy to see 
that this act must in its origin always be of one 
and the same nature, no matter what may be the 
form of combination; and that the resolution or 
analysis, which seems to be its opposite, in point of 
fact always presupposes it. If understanding has 
previously combined nothing, there is nothing for it 
to resolve; for without the combining activity of 
understanding there can be no consciousness of an 
object at all. 

By combination, however, must be understood not 
merely the synthesis of the various determinations 
of sense, but also their unity. Combination is con- 
sciousness of the synthetic unity of various determi- 
nations. The consciousness of this unity cannot be 
the result of the combination, for were we not, in 
being conscious of various determinations, also con- 
scious of their unity, we should have no conception 
of combination at all. Nor must this unity, which 
precedes any conception of combination, be confused 
with the category of unity; for all categories 
rest upon logical functions of judgment, and, in 
these, combination, or the unity of given concep- 
tions, is already implied. For an explanation of the 
unity in question, which is qualitative, we must 
go further back, and seek it in that whichj as the 
ground of the unity of various conceptions in judg- 
ment, is implied in the possibility even of the logical 
use of understanding. 

16. The original Synthetic unity of Appe7'ception. 

The '7 think" must be capable of accompanying 

all my ideas; for, otherwise, I should be conscious 



The Self 469 

of something that could not be thought ; which is the 
same as saying, that I should not be conscious at 
all, or at least should be conscious only of that which 
for me was nothing. Now, that form of conscious- 
ness which is prior to all thought, is perception. 
Hence, all the manifold determinations of percep- 
tion have a necessary relation to the "I think" in 
the subject that is conscious of them. The '7 think," 
however, is an act of spontaneity, which cannot pos- 
sibly be due to sense. I call it pure apperception, 
to distinguish it from empirical apperception. I 
call it also the original apperception, because it is 
the self-consciousness which produces the "/ think." 
Now, the "I think" must be capable of accompany- 
ing all other ideas, and it is one and the same in all 
consciousness ; but there is no other idea beyond the 
"I think," to which self-consciousness is bound in a 
similar way. The unity of apperception I call also 
the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, to 
indicate that upon it depends the possibility of a 
priori knowledge. For, the various determinations 
given in a certain perception would not all be in my 
consciousness, if they did not all belong to one self- 
consciousness. True, I may not be aware of this, 
but yet as they are determinations of my conscious- 
ness, they must necessarily conform to the condition, 
without which they are not capable of standing to- 
gether in one universal self-consciousness. In no 
other way would they all without exception be mine. 
From this original combination important conse- 
quences follow. 

The absolute identity of apperception in relation 
to all the determinations given in perception, in- 



470 Readings in Philosophy 

volves a synthesis of those determinations, and is 
possible only through consciousness of the synthesis. 
For, the empirical consciousness, which accompanies 
each determination as it arises, is in itself broken 
up into units, and is unrelated to the one identical 
subject. Relation to a single subject does not take 
place when I accompany each determination with 
consciousness, but only when I add one determina- 
tion to the other, and am conscious of this act of 
synthesis. It is only because I am capable of com- 
bining in one consciousness the various determina- 
tions presented to me, that I can become aware that 
in every one of them the consciousness is the same. 
The analytic unity of apperception is, therefore, 
possible only under presupposition of a certain syn- 
thetic unity. The thought, that the determinations 
given in a perception all belong to me, is the same 
as the thought, that I unite them, or at least that I 
am capable of uniting them in one self-conscious- 
ness. This does not of itself involve a consciousness 
of tJpe synthesis of determinations, but it presup- 
poses the possibility of that consciousness. It is 
only because I am capable of grasping the various 
determinations in one consciousness, that I can call 
them all mine; were it not so, I should have a self 
as many-coloured and various as the separate deter- 
minations of which I am conscious. Synthetic unity 
of the various determinations of perception as given 
a priori, is therefore the ground of that identity of 
apperception itself, which precedes a pHori every 
definite act of thought. Now, objects cannot com- 
bine themselves, nor can understanding learn that 
they are combined by observing their combination. 



The Self 471 

All combination is the work of understanding, and 
in fact understanding is itself nothing but the 
faculty of combining a priori, and bringing under 
the unity of apperception, the various determina- 
tions given in perception. The unity of appercep- 
tion is, therefore, the supreme principle of all our 
knowledge. 

This principle of the necessary unity of apper- 
ception, is no doubt in itself an identical and there- 
fore an analytic proposition; but it also reveals the 
necessity for a synthesis of the various determina- 
tions given in perception, because without such 
synthesis the thoroughgoing identity of self-con- 
sciousness is inconceivable. In the simple conscious- 
ness of self, no variety of determination is given; 
such variety of determination can be given only in 
the perception which is distinguished from the 
consciousness of self, and can be thought only by 
being combined in one consciousness. An under- 
standing in which the consciousness of self should 
at the same time be a consciousness of all the com- 
plex determinations of objects, would be perceptive; 
but our understanding can only think, and must go to 
sense for perception. I am conscious of my self as 
identical in the various determinations presented to 
me in a perception, because all determinations that 
constitute one perception I call mine. But this is the 
same as saying, that I am conscious of a necessary 
synthesis of them a priori, or that they rest upon 
the original synthetic unity of apperception, under 
which all the determinations given to me must stand, 
but under which they can be brought only by means 
of a synthesis. 



472 Readings in Philosophy 

17. The synthetic unity of Apperception is the 
supreme principle of Understanding. 

In the Transcendental Esthetic, we have seen that 
the supreme principle, without which perception in 
its relation to sensibility is impossible, is, that all 
the determinations of perception should stand under 
the formal conditions of space and time. Now, the 
supreme principle, without which perception, in its 
relation to understanding is impossible, is, that all 
determinations of perception should stand under 
conditions of the original synthetic unity of apper- 
ception. Under the former stand all determinations 
of perception, in so far as they are given to us; 
under the latter, in so far as they must be capable 
of being combined in one consciousness. Apart from 
the synthetic unity of apperception, nothing can be 
thought or known, because the determinations given 
in perception, not having the act of apperception, 
"I think," in common, would not be comprehended in 
one self-consciousness. 

Speaking quite generally, understanding is the 
faculty of knoivledge. Knowledge consists in the 
consciousness of certain given determinations as re- 
lated to an object. An object, again, is that, in the 
conception of which the various determinations of a 
given perception are united. Now, all unification 
of determinations requires unity of consciousness 
in the synthesis of determinations. Hence, the 
unity of consciousness is absolutely necessary, to 
constitute the relation of determinations to an ob- 
ject, give them objective validity, and make them 



The Self 473 

objects of knowledge; and on that unity therefore 
rests the very possibility of understanding. 

The principle of the original synthetic unity of 
apperception, as being completely independent of all 
conditions of sensuous perception, is the first pure 
cognition of the understanding, upon which all its 
further use depends. Space, as the mere form of 
external sensuous perception, does not of itself yield 
any knowledge : it but supplies the various elements 
of a pidori perception that are capable of becoming 
knowledge. To know anything spatial, as, for in- 
stance a line, I must dimw it, and so produce by syn- 
thesis a definite combination of the given elements. 
Thus, the unity of the act of combination is at the 
same time the unity of the consciousness in which 
the line is thought, and only in this unity of con- 
sciousness is a determinate space known as an ob- 
ject. The synthetic unity of consciousness is, there- 
fore, an objective condition of all knowledge. It is 
not merely a condition which I must observe in 
knowing an object, but it is a condition under which 
every perception must stand, before it can become 
an object for me at all. Without this synthesis, 
the various determinations would not be united in 
one consciousness. 

Although it is thus proved, that the synthetic 
unity of consciousness is the condition of all thought, 
the unity of consciousness, as has been already said, 
is in itself an analytic proposition. For, it says 
only, that all the determinations of which / am con- 
scious in a given perception must stand under the 
condition, which enables me to regard them as mine, 
or as related to my identical self, and so to compre- 



474 Readings in Philosophy 

hend them as synthetically combined in one apper- 
ception, through the "I think" expressed in all alike. 
But this is not the principle of every possible un- 
derstanding, but only of an understanding, through 
the pure apperception of which, in the conscious- 
ness "/ am," no determinations are given. If we 
had an understanding, which, by its mere self-con- 
sciousness, presented to itself the manifold determi- 
nations of perception; an understanding, which, by 
its very consciousness of objects, should give rise to 
the existence of these objects; such an understand- 
ing would not require, for the unity of consciousness, 
a special act of synthesis of manifold determina- 
tions. But this act of synthesis is essential to 
human understanding, which thinks, but does not 
perceive. It is, indeed, the supreme principle of 
human understanding. Nor can we form the least 
conception of any other possible understanding, 
whether of one that itself perceives, or of one that 
is dependent upon sensibility for its perception, but 
not upon a sensibility that stands under the con- 
ditions of space and time. 

18. Objective unity of Self-consciousness. 
The transcendental unity of apperception is that 
unity through which all the determinations given 
in a perception are united in a conception of the 
object. It is, accordingly, called objective, and must 
be distinguished from the subjective unity of con- 
sciousness, which is a determination of the inner 
sense, through which the complex of perception is 
given empirically to be combined into an object. 
Whether I shall be empirically conscious of certain 



The Self 475 

determinations as simultaneous, or as successive, 
depends upon circumstances, or empirical condi- 
tions. Hence, the empirical unity of consciousness, 
through the association of the elements of percep- 
tion, is itself a phenomenon, and is perfectly con- 
tingent. But the pure form of perception in time, 
as merely perception in general, stands under the 
original unity of consciousness just because the va- 
rious determinations given in it are necessarily re- 
lated to an '7 think." It therefore stands under 
that original unity by means of the pure synthesis 
of understanding, which is the a priori ground of the 
empirical synthesis. Only the original unity of 
apperception is objective; the empirical unity, with 
which we are not here concerned, and which besides 
is only derived from the other, under given condi- 
tions in concreto, is merely subjective. To one man, 
for instance, a certain word suggests one thing, to 
another a different thing. In what is empirical, the 
unity of consciousness does not hold necessarily and 
universally of that which is given. 

D. Freedom. 

The following is one of most significant argu- 
ments for freedom in the history of philosophy. It 
is one of Kant's best statements of any of his views : 

The Idea of Freedom as the Key to the Autonomy 
of the Will 
The^ tvill is the causality of living beings in so far 
as they are rational. Freedom is that causality in 

■■ Kant, Metapkysic of Morality; Watson's Selections, 
pages 250-258; edition cit.ed above. 



476 Readings in Philosophy 

so far as it can be regarded as efficient without be- 
ing determined to activity by any cause other than 
itself. Natural necessity is the property of all non- 
rational beings to be determined to activity by some 
cause external to themselves. 

The definition of freedom just given is negative, 
and therefore it does not tell us what freedom is in 
itself; but it prepares the way for a positive con- 
ception of a more specific and more fruitful char- 
acter. The conception of causality carries with it 
the conception of determination by law (Gesetz), 
for the effect is conceived as determined (gesetzt) 
by the cause. Hence freedom must not be regarded 
as lawless (gesetzlos), but simply as independent of 
laws of nature. A free cause does conform to un- 
changeable laws, but these laws are peculiar to it- 
self; and, indeed, apart from law a free will has no 
meaning whatever. A necessary law of nature, as 
we have seen, implies the heteronomy of efficient 
causes; for no effect is possible at all, unless its 
cause is itself determined to activity by something 
else. What, therefore, can freedom possibly be but 
autonomy, that is, the property of the will to be a 
law to itself? Now, to say that the will in all its 
actions is a law to itself, is simply to say that its 
principle is, to act from no other maxim than 
that the object of which is itself as a universal law. 
But this is just the formula of the categorical im- 
perative and the principle of morality. Hence a free 
will is the same thing as a will that conforms to 
moral laws. 

If, then, we start from the presupposition of free- 
dom of the will, we can derive morality and the 



The Self 477 

principle of morality simply from an analysis of the 
conception of freedom. Yet the principle of mor- 
ality, namely, that an absolutely good will is a will 
the maxim of which can always be taken as itself 
a universal law, is a synthetic proposition. For by 
no possibility can we derive this property of the 
maxim from an analysis of the conception of an 
absolutely good will. The transition from the con- 
ception of freedom to the conception of morality can 
De made only if there is a third proposition which 
connects the other two in a synthetic unity. The 
positive conception of freedom yields this third 
proposition, and not the conception of nature, in 
which a thing is related causally only to something 
else. What this third proposition is to which free- 
dom points, and of which we have an a priori idea, 
can be made clear only after some preliminary in- 
vestigation. 

Freedom is a property of all Rational Beings 
It cannot in any way be proved that the will of 
man is free, unless it can be shown that the will of 
all rational beings is free. For morality is a law 
for us only in so far as we are rational beings, and 
therefore it must apply to all rational beings. But 
morality is possible only for a free being, and hence 
it must be proved that freedom also belongs to the 
will of all rational beings. Now I say, that a being 
-who cannot act except under the idea of freedom, 
must for that very reason be regarded as free so 
far as his actions are concerned. In other words, 
even if it cannot be proved by speculative reason that 
his will is free, all the laws that are inseparably 



478 Readings in Philosophy 

bound up with freedom must be viewed by him as 
laws of his will. And I say, further, that we must 
necessarily attribute to every rational being that 
has a will the idea of freedom, because every such 
being always acts under that idea. A rational be- 
ing we must conceive as having a reason that is 
practical, that is, a reason that has causality with 
regard to its objects. Now, it is impossible to con- 
ceive of a reason which should be consciously biassed 
in its judgments by some influence from without, 
for the subject would in that case regard its judg- 
ments as determined, not by reason, but by a natural 
impulse. Reason must therefore regard itself as the 
author of its principles of action, and as independent 
of all external influences. Hence, as practical rea- 
son, or as the will of a rational being, it must be re- 
garded by itself as free. The will of a rational be- 
ing, in other words, can be his own will only if he 
acts under the idea of freedom, and therefore this 
idea must in the practical sphere be ascribed to all 
rational beings'. 

The Interest connected with Moral Ideas 
We have at last succeeded in reducing the true 
conception of morality to the idea of freedom. This, 
however, does not prove that man actually is free, 
but only that, without presupposing freedom, we 
cannot conceive of ourselves as rational beings, who 
are conscious of causality with respect to our ac- 
tions, that is, as endowed with will. We have also 
found that on the same ground all beings endowed 
with reason and will must determine themselves 
to action under the idea of their freedom. 



The Self 479 

From the presupposition of the idea of freedom 
there also followed the consciousness of a law of 
action, the law that our subjective principles of 
action, or maxims, must always be of such a char- 
acter that they have the validity of objective or uni- 
versal principles, and can be taken as universal laws 
imposed upon our will by ourselves. But why, it 
may be asked, should I subject myself to this prin- 
ciple simply as a rational being, and why, therefore, 
should all other beings who are endowed with reason 
come under the same principle? Admitting that I 
am not forced to do so by interest — which indeed 
would make a categorical imperative impossible — 
yet I must take an interest in that principle and see 
how I come to subject myself to it. 

It looks as if we had, strictly speaking, shown 
merely that in the idea of freedom the moral law 
must be presupposed in order to explain the prin- 
ciple of the autonomy of the will, without being able 
to prove the reality and objectivity of the moral law 
itself. 

It must be frankly admitted, that there is here a 
sort of circle from which it seems impossible to 
escape. We assume that as efficient causes we are 
free, in order to explain how in the kingdom of ends 
we can be under moral laws; and then we think of 
ourselves as subject to moral laws, because we have 
ascribed to ourselves freedom of will. Freedom of 
will and self-legislation of will are both autonomy, 
and, therefore, they are conceptions which imply 
each other ; but, for that very reason, the one cannot 
be employed to explain or to account for the other. 



480 Readings in Philosophy 

Ho'W is a Categorical Inoperative possible? 
As an intelligence, a rational being views himself 
as a member of the intelligible world, and it is only 
as an efficient cause belonging to this world that he 
speaks of his own causality as ivill. On the other 
hand, he is conscious of himself as also a part of 
the world of sense, and in this connection his actions 
appear as mere phenomena which that causality un- 
derlies. Yet he cannot trace back his actions as 
phenomena to the causality of his will, because of 
that causality he has no knowledge; and he is thus 
forced to view them as if they were determined 
merely by other phenomena, that is, by natural de- 
sires and inclinations. Were a man a member only 
of the intelligible world, all his actions would be 
in perfect agreement with the autonomy of the will ; 
were he merely a part of the world of sense, they 
would have to be regarded as completely subject to 
the natural law of desire and inclination, and to the 
heteronomy of nature. The former would rest upon 
the supreme principle of morality, the latter upon 
that of happiness. But it must be observed that the 
intelligible world is the condition of the ivorld of 
sense, and, therefore, of the laws of that world. And 
as the will belongs altogether to the intelligible 
world, it is the intelligible world that prescribes the 
laws which the will directly obeys. As an intel- 
ligence, I am therefore subject to the law of the 
intelligible world, that is, to reason, notwithstanding 
the fact that I belong on the other side of my nature 
to the world of sense. Now, as subject to reason, 
which in the idea of freedom contains the law of 



The Self 481 

the intelligible world, I am conscious of being sub- 
ject to the autonomy of the will. The laws of the 
intelligible world I must therefore regard as im- 
peratives, and the actions conformable to this prin- 
ciple as duties. 

The explanation of the possibility of categorical 
imperatives, then, is, that the idea of freedom 
makes me a member of the intelligible world. Were 
I a member of no other world, all my actions would 
as a matter of fact always conform to the autonomy 
of the will. But as I perceive myself to be also a 
member of the world of sense, I can say only, that 
my actions ought to conform to the autonomy of 
the will. The categorical ought is thus an a priori 
synthetic proposition. To my will as affected by 
sensuous desires, there is added synthetically the 
idea of my will as belonging to the intelligible world, 
and therefore as pure and self-determining. The 
will as rational is therefore the supreme condition 
of the will as sensuous. The method of explana- 
tion here employed is similar to that by which the 
categories were deduced. For the a priori synthetic 
propositions, which make all knowledge of nature 
possible, depend^ as we have seen, upon the addition 
to perceptions of sense of the pure conceptions of 
understanding, which, in themselves, are nothing 
but the form of law in general. 

Limits of Practical Philosophy 

Freedom is only an idea of reason, and therefore 
its objective reality is doubtful. Thus there arises 
a dialectic of practical reason. The freedom as- 



482 Readings in Philosophy 

cribed to the will seems to stanS in contradiction 
with the necessity of nature. It is, therefore, in- 
cumbent upon speculative philosophy at least to 
show that we think of man in one sense and relation 
when we call him free, and in another sense and 
relation when we view him as a part of nature, and 
as subject to its laws. But this duty is incum- 
bent upon speculative philosophy only in so far as 
it has to clear the way for practical philosophy. 

In thinking itself into the intelligible world, prac- 
tical reason does not transcend its proper limits, as 
it would do if it tried to know itself directly by 
means of perception. In so thinking itself, reason 
merely conceives of itself negatively as not belong- 
ing to the world of sense, without giving any laws 
to itself in determination of the will. There is but 
a single point in which it is positive, namely, in the 
thought that freedom, though it is a negative de- 
termination, is yet bound up with a positive faculty, 
and, indeed, with a causality of reason which is 
called will. In other words, will is the faculty of 
so acting that the principle of action should conform 
to the essential nature of a rational motive, that is, 
to the condition that the maxim of action should 
have the universal validity of a law. Were reason, 
however, to derive an object of will, that is, a motive, 
from the intelligible world, it would transcend its 
proper limits, and would make a pretence of know- 
ing something of which it knew nothing. The con- 
ception of an intelligible world is therefore merely 
a point of vieiv beyond the world of sense, at which 
reason sees itself compelled to take its stand in order 
to think itself as practical. This conception would 



The Self 483 

not be possible at all if the sensuous desires were 
sufficient to determine the action of man. It is 
necessary, because otherwise man would not be con- 
scious of himself as an intelligence, and, therefore, 
not as a rational cause acting through reason or 
operating freely. This thought undoubtedly involves 
the idea of an order and a system of laws other than 
the order and laws of nature, which concern only 
the world of sense. Hence it makes necessary the 
conception of an intelligible world, a world which 
comprehends the totality of rational beings as things 
in themselves. Yet it in no way entitles us to think 
of that world otherwise than in its formal condi- 
tion, that is, to conceive of the maxims of the will 
as conformable to universal laws. 

Reason would, therefore, completely transcend its 
proper limits, if it should undertake to explain hotu 
pure reason can be practical, or, what is the same 
thing, to explain hotv freedom is possible. 

We can explain nothing but that which we can 
reduce to laws, the object of which can be presented 
in a possible experience. Freedom, however, is a 
mere idea, the objective reality of which can in no 
way be presented in accordance with laws of nature, 
and, therefore, not in any possible experience. It 
has merely the necessity of a presupposition of rea- 
son, made by a being who believes himself to be 
conscious of a will, that is, of a faculty distinct from 
mere desire. The most that we can do is to defend 
freedom by removing the objections of those who 
claim to have a deeper insight into the nature of 
things than we can pretend to have, and who there- 
fore, declare that freedom is impossible. It would no 



484 Readings in Philosophy 

doubt be a contradiction to say that in its causality 
the will is entirely separated from all the laws of the 
sensible world. But the contradiction disappears, 
if we say, that behind phenomena there are things 
in themselves, which, though they are hidden from 
us, are the condition of phenomena; and that the 
laws of action of things in themselves naturally are 
not the same as the laws under which their phe- 
nomenal manifestations stand. 

While, therefore, it is true that we cannot compre- 
hend the practical unconditioned necessity of the 
moral imperative, it is also true that we can com- 
prehend its incomp7'ehensibility ; and this is all that 
can fairly be demanded of a philosophy which seeks 
to reach the principles which determine the limits 
of human reason. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF METAPHYSICS 

Space does not allow the illustration of all of 
these important conceptions. The following have 
been selected because of the importance they have 
had in the course of the history of thought: 

A. Nature of the Categories: 

By^ synthesis, in its most general sense, is meant 
the act of putting various ideas together, and grasp- 
ing their multiplicity in one consciousness. Such 
synthesis is pure, if the multiplicity is given, not 
empirically, but a priori, as in the case of space and 
time. Now, before we can analyze any idea, we 
must first have the idea, and hence the content of a 
conception cannot originally come into consciousness 
by analysis. It is by synthesis of various elements, 
whether those elements are given empirically or a 
priori, that we first get knowledge. No doubt the 
synthesis may at first be crude and confused, and it 
may stand in need of analysis, but yet it is by syn- 
thesis that the various elements are gathered to- 
gether and united in the knowledge of a certain con- 
crete object. It is to synthesis, therefore, that we 
must first direct our attention, if we would learn 
the true origin of our knowledge. 



^ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Watson's Selections, 
pages 49-55; edition previously cited. 

(485) 



32 



486 Readings in Philosophy 

Synthesis in general, as we shall afterwards see, 
is due solely to the operation of imagination, a blind 
but indispensable function of the soul, without which 
we should have no -knowledge whatever, but of which 
we are seldom even conscious. To bring this syn- 
thesis to conceptions is the function of understand- 
ing, and it is only by this operation of understanding 
that we obtain what can properly be called knowl- 
edge. 

Pure synthesis, viewed in its most general aspect, 
is the pure conception of understanding. By this 
pure synthesis I understand that which rests upon a 
basis of a priori synthetic unity. Thus in arith- 
metical addition, as is readily seen in the case of 
large numbers, the synthesis conforms to a concep- 
tion, because it proceeds on a common basis of unity, 
as, for instance, the decade. By this conception the 
unity in the synthesis of a complex is made neces- 
sary. 

By analysis various ideas are brought under a 
single conception, as is shown in general logic. But 
it belongs to transcendental logic to tell us how 
the pure synthesis of ideas is brought to conceptions. 
The first element that enters into the knowledge of 
all objects a priori is the complex content of pure 
perception. The second element is the synthesis 
of this content by imagination. But as even this is 
not enough to constitute knowledge, a third element 
is supplied by understanding, in the conceptions 
which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which 
consist solely in the consciousness of this necessary 
synthetic unity. 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 487 

The same function which gives unity to various 
ideas in a judgment also gives unity to the mere 
synthesis of various ideas in a perception; and this 
synthesis, in its most general expression, is the pure 
conception of understanding. Understanding at 
once gives analytic unity to conceptions, and syn- 
thetic unity to the complex content of perception; 
and indeed the logical form of judgment presup- 
poses and rests upon the very same acts of thought 
as those by which a transcendental content is giv6n 
to the various determinations of our consciousness. 
Hence it is that the pure conceptions of understand- 
ing, as they are fitly called, apply to objects a priori, 
and therefore do not fall within the view of general 
logic. 

In this way there arises exactly the same number 
of pure conceptions of understanding, applying a 
pHori to all objects of perception, as there are logical 
functions of judgments . . . ; for those func- 
tions completely specify understanding, and give a 
perfect measure of its powers. We shall call the 
pure conceptions categories, after Aristotle, be- 
cause our object is the same as his, although our 
method and results are widely diflferent. 

Table of Categories 
1. Quantity. 

Unity. 

Plurality. 

Totality. 



488 Readings in Philosophy 



2. Quality. 
Reality. 

Negation, 


3. Relation 
Inherence and Subsistence 

(substantia et accidens.) 
Causality and Dependence 

(cause and effect). 


Limitation. 


Community (reciprocity 
between the active and 
the passive) . 


4. 
Possibility 
Existence 
Necessity 


Modality 

Impossibility. 

Non-existence. 

Contingency. 



This, then, is a list of all the primary pure con- 
ceptions of synthesis that understanding contains 
within itself a priori. Because it contains these 
pure conceptions, it is called pure understanding, 
and only by them can it understand anything in the 
complex content of perception, that is, think an ob- 
ject. The table has not been left to the uncertain 
suggestions of empirical induction, but has been 
drawn up systematically, on the basis of a single 
principle, namely, the faculty of judgment, or, what 
is the same thing, the faculty of thought. 

II. 

The table of categories suggests some nice points, 
which, perhaps, might be found to have an im- 
portant bearing on the scientific form of all knowl- 
edge of reason. (1) The four classes of categories 
naturally fall into two groups; those in the first 



The Funda/mental Concepts of Metaphysics 489 

group being- concerned with objects of perception, 
pure as well as empirical, while those in the second 
group are concerned with the existence of those ob- 
jects, as related either to one another or to under- 
standing. The first may be called the mathematical, 
the second the dynamical categories. The former, 
as is obvious, have no correlates, the latter have 
correlates. This distinction must have some ground 
in the nature of understanding. (2) It is also 
suggestive that the number of categories in each 
class is three, because usually all a priori division 
must be by dichotomy. To this it must be added 
that the third category in each class arises from the 
union of the second category with the first. Thus 
totality or allness is just plurality regarded as unity, 
limitation is reality combined with negatio7i, com- 
munity is causality in which two substances mutually 
determine one another, and lastly, necessity is just 
existence given by mere possibility itself. 

13. Principles of a Transcendental Deduction 
There is a distinction in law between the ques- 
tion of right (quid juris) and the question of fact 
(quid facti). Both must be proved, but proof of a 
right or claim is called its deduction. Now, among 
the variety of conceptions that make up the very 
mixed web of human knowledge, there are certain 
conceptions that put in a claim for use entirely a 
priori, and this claim of course stands in need of 
deduction. It is useless to refer to the fact of expe- 
rience in justification of such a claim, but at the 
same time we must know how conceptions can pos- 
sibly refer to objects which yet they do not derive 



490 Readings in Philosophy 

from experience. An explanation of the manner 
in which conceptions can relate a priori to objects, 
I call a transcendental deduction; and from it I dis- 
tinguish an empirical deduction, which simply tells 
us how a conception has been acquired by experience 
and reflection on experience. The former proves 
our right to the use of a certain conception, the latter 
merely points out that as a matter of fact it has 
come into our possession in a certain way. 

We had no difficulty in explaining how space and 
time, although they are themselves known a priori, 
are yet necessarily related to objects, and make 
possible a synthetic knowledge of objects which is 
independent of all experience. For, as it is only 
by means of these pure forms of sense that we can 
be conscious of an object in empirical perception, 
space and time are pure perceptions, which con- 
tain a priori the condition of the possibility of ob- 
jects as phenomena, and therefore synthesis in them 
has objective validity. 

The categories of understanding, on the other 
hand, are not conditions under which objects are 
given in perception; hence objects might certainly 
be presented to us, even if they were not necessarily 
related to functions of understanding, as their a 
priori condition. Here, therefore, a difficulty arises 
that we did not meet with in the field of sensibility. 
The difficulty is, how subjective conditions of thought 
should have objective validity, or, in other words, 
how they should be conditions without which no 
knowledge of objects would be possible. Take, for 
instance, the conception of cause. Here we have 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 491 

a peculiar sort of synthesis, in which something B 
is conceived as following upon something else quite 
different A, in conformity with a rule. It is hard 
to see why phenomena should be subject to such 
an a py^iori conception. Why should not the con- 
ception be perfectly empty, and without any phe- 
nomenal object corresponding to it? 

We cannot avoid the toil of such investigations by 
saying that experience is perpetually giving us ex- 
amples of such conformity to law on the part of 
phenomena, and that we are thus enabled to form 
an abstract conception of cause, and to be certain 
of its objective validity. The conception of cause 
cannot possibly originate in that way ; and hence we 
must either show that it rests completely a priori 
upon understanding, or we must discard it altogether 
as a mere fiction of the brain. For the conception 
demands that something A should be of such a nature 
that something else B follows from it necessarily, 
and in conformity with an absolutely universal rule. 
No pure conception of the understanding can be the 
product of empirical induction without a complete 
reversal of its nature and use. 

The transcendental deduction of all a priori con- 
ceptions must therefore be guided b^^the principle, 
that these conceptions must be the a priori condi- 
tions of all possible experience. Conceptions which 
make experience possible are for that very reason 
necessary. An analysis of the experience in which 
they occur would not furnish a deduction of them, 
but merely an illustration of their use. Were they 
not the primary conditions of all the experience in 



492 Readings in Philosophy 

which objects are known as phenomena, their rela- 
tion to even a single object would be utterly incom- 
prehensible. 

B. Deduction of the Categories. 

The "deduction" of the categories as Kant uses 
the term is the statement of the justification of the 
use by human beings of the forms of human thought 
in dealing with "objective" reality: 

AW Sensuous Perceptions stand under the Cate- 
gories as conditions under which alone^ their various 
determinations can come together in one Conscious- 
ness. ^ 

The various determinations given in a sensuous 
perception stand under the original synthetic unity 
of apperception, because in no other way could there 
possibly be any unity of apperception. But that act 
of understandng, by which the determinations given 
in consciousness, whether these are perceptions or 
conceptions, are brought under a single appercep- 
tion, is the logical function of the judgment. Hence, 
all the elements given in an empirical perception are 
dete7'mined by one of the logical functions of judg- 
ment, and thus brought into one consciousness. But 
the categories are just the functions of judgment, 
in so far as these are applied in determination of 
the various elements of a given perception. There- 
fore, the various determinations in a given percep- 
tion necessarily stand under the categories. 



^ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Watson's Selections, 
pages 72-83; edition cited above. 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 493 

The Category has no other application in Knoivledge 
than to Objects of Experience. 
To think an object is not the same thing as to 
knotv it. Knowledge involves two elements : firstly, 
the conception or category, by which an object in 
general is thought ; secondly, the perception by which 
it is given. If no perception could be given, cor- 
responding to the conception, I should no doubt be 
able to think an object so far as its form was con- 
cerned, but as there would be no object in which that 
form was realized, I could not possibly have knowl- 
edge of any actual thing. So far as I could know, 
there would be nothing, and could be nothing, to 
which my thought might be applied. Now, the 
Esthetic has shown to us tha«t all the perception 
that we can have is sensuous ; hence the thought of 
an object in general, by means of a pure conception 
of understanding, can become knowledge, only by 
being brought into relation with objects of sense. 
Sensuous perception is either the pure perception of 
space and time, or the empirical perception of that 
which is directly presented through sensation as 
actually in space and time. By the determination of 
space and time themselves, we can obtain that a 
pi'iori knowledge of objects which mathematics sup- 
plies. But this knowledge is only of the form of 
phenomena, and it is still doubtful if actual things 
must be perceived in this form. Mathematical con- 
ceptions, therefore, can be called knowledge, only if 
it is presupposed that there are actual things which 
cannot be presented to us except under the form of 
that pure sensuous perception. Now, things in 



494 Readings in Philosophy 

space and time are given to us only through em- 
pirical observation, that is, in perceptions that are 
accompanied by sensation. Hence, the pure concep- 
tions of understanding, even if they are applied to 
a priori perceptions, as in mathematics, do not yield 
a knowledge of things. Before there can be any 
knowledge, the pure perceptions, and the concep- 
tions of understanding through the medium of pure 
perceptions, must be applied to empirical percep- 
tions. The categories, therefore, give us no knowl- 
edge of actual things, even with the aid of percep- 
tion, except in so far as they are capable of being 
applied to empirical perception. In other words, 
they are merely conditions of the possibility of em- 
pirical knowledge. Now, such knowledge is called 
expeyi^ence. Hence "the categories have a share in 
the knowledge of those things only that are objects 
of possible experience. 

The above proposition is of the greatest impor- 
tance, for it marks out the limits of the pure concep- 
tions of understanding in their application to ob- 
jects, just as Transcendental Esthetic marked out 
the limits of the pure forms of sensuous perception. 
Space and time are but the conditions under which 
objects that are relative to our senses are capable of 
being presented to us, and therefore they apply o\i\y 
within the limits of experience. Beyond those limits 
they have no meaning whatever, for they are only 
in the senses, and have no reality apart from them. 
The pure conceptions of understanding are free 
from this limitation, and extend to objects of per- 
ception of any kind, whether that perception is like 
or unlike ours, if only it is sensuous, and not intel- 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 495 

lectual. But this extension of conception beyond 
our sensuous perception does not help us in the least. 
For, the conceptions are in that case quite empty, 
and we are therefore unable even to say that there 
are any objects corresponding to them. They are 
mere forms of thought without objective reality, for 
we have no perception at hand, and therefore no 
object, to which the synthetic unity of apperception, 
which is the sole content of those forms of thought, 
could be applied. Only our sensuous and empirical 
perception can give to them meaning and reality. 

If I suppose an object of a non-sensuous percep- 
tion to be given, I can, no doubt, think of it as hav- 
ing all the predicates implied in my presupposition. 
I can say that the object has none of the determina- 
tions proper to sensuous perception : that it is not 
extended or in space, that its duration is not time, 
that there is in it no change or succession of states 
in time, etc. But no real knowledge of an object is 
gained by merely indicating how it is not perceived, 
so long as I cannot tell what is the content of its 
perception. I cannot in that way understand even 
the possibility of an object to which my pure con- 
ception could apply, for I am unable to bring for- 
ward a perception corresponding to such an object, 
and can say only that my perception can never bring 
me into contact with it. But what most concerns 
us here, is, that to a thing of that nature, not even a 
single category could be applied. I could not say, 
for instance, that such a thing is a substance, that is, 
a thing that can exist as subject, but never as mere 
predicate. For, how could I apply the conception 
of substance, when, in the absence of all empirical 



496 Readings in Philosophy 

perception, I should not even know that anything 
corresponding to my idea could exist at all ? 

The application of the Categories to objects of sense. 

Understanding is capable of applying its pure con- 
ceptions to any object of perception, whether the 
perception is the same as ours or not, if only it is 
sensuous. But what this shows is that those con- 
ceptions are but mere forms of thought, which in 
themselves yield no knowledge of a determinate 
object. As we have seen, the synthesis, or com- 
bination of various elements implied in these forms 
of thought, is relative merely to the unity of apper- 
ception, and only in relation to that unity does it 
make possible any a pHori knowledge, or rather that 
knowledge which rests upon understanding. It is, 
therefore, not only transcendental, but also purely 
intellectual. But there lies in us a certain form of 
a priori sensuous perception, which is bound up with 
our sensibility, or the receptive side of our conscious- 
ness. Hence understanding, by its spontaneity, is 
capable of determining the inner sense, by bringing 
the various elements given in pure perception into 
conformity with the synthetic unity of apperception. 
Thus it can think synthetic unity of the apperception 
of the elements implied in a priori sensuous percep- 
tion as the condition under which all objects of 
human perception must necessarily stand. In this 
way the categories, which in themselves are mere 
forms of thought, obtain objective reality, or ap- 
plication to objects that can b© given to us in per- 
ception. These objects, however, are merely phe- 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 49-7 

nomena, for only to phenomena do the a priori forms 
of perception apply. 

This synthesis of the units of sensuous percep- 
tion, which is possible and necessary a pHoy^i, may 
be called fig-ural synthesis (synthesis speciosa), to 
distinguish it from that intellectual synthesis (syn- 
thesis intellectualis), which is thought in the mere 
category as applicable to all the determinations of a 
perception. Both are transcendental, not merely 
because they precede a priori other knowledge, but 
because they make other a priori knowledge possible. 

But the figural synthesis, when it is considered 
merely in relation to the original synthetic unity of 
apperception, that is, to the transcendental unity 
which is thought in the categories, must be called, in 
distinction from the purely intellectual combination, 
the transcendental synthesis of imagination. Im- 
agination is the faculty of setting before the mind in 
perception an object that is not itself present. Now, 
all our perception is sensuous, and hence imagination 
can give a perception corresponding to the concep- 
tions of understanding, only under the subjective 
condition of time. Imagination therefore pertains 
to sensibility. At the same time its synthesis is the 
expression of spontaneous activity; for, unlike sense, 
imagination is not simply capable of being deter- 
mined, but it is itself determining ; and hence it can 
a prioin determine sense in its form, in accordance 
with the unity of apperception. Imagination, then, 
is in one point of view the faculty of determining 
the sensibility a priori; and its synthesis of the ele- 
ments of pure perception, conforming as it does to 



498 Readings in Philosophy 

the categories, must be called the transcendental 
synthesis of imagination. This synthesis is the re- 
sult of an action of understanding on the sensibility, 
or it is the first application, and so the condition of 
all other applications, of understanding to objects 
that we are capable of perceiving. The figural syn- 
thesis is distinguished from the intellectual synthe- 
sis simply in this, that the latter is due purely to 
understanding in isolation from imagination. In 
so far as imagination is a spontaneous activity, I 
sometimes call it productive imagination, to distin- 
tinguish it from reproductive imagination, the syn- 
thesis of which is entirely dependent upon empirical 
laws of association. As this latter synthesis in no 
way helps to explain how a priori knowledge is pos- 
sible, it belongs to psychology, not to transcendental 
philosophy. 

Transcendental Deduction of the Categories as 
employed in Experience. 
In the metaphysical deduction it has been proved 
that the categories have their origin a priori, be- 
cause they perfectly agree with the universal logical 
functions of thought. In the transcendental de- 
duction, we have seen how the categories make 
possible the a priori knowledge of objects of per- 
ception in general. We have now to explain how, 
by means of the categories, we are capable of know- 
ing a prio7'i objects of which we are conscious only 
when our senses are actually affected. What we 
propose to explain is not how there can be an a 
priori knowledge of sensible objects as regards the 
form of perception, but how there can be an a priori 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 499 

knowledge of the laws by which the combination of 
objects is effected, or, as we may say, what are 
the laws imposed upon nature, without which there 
would be no nature at all. 

Thq first thing to be observed is that by synthesis 
of apprehension is meant the putting together of 
various determinations in an empirical perception, 
an act without which there could be no observation 
or empirical consciousness of a phenomenal object. 

In space and time we have a prio7'i forms of outer 
as well as inner perception; and to these the syn- 
thesis of apprehension must always conform, be- 
cause in no other way can apprehension take place at 
all. But space and time are more than mere forms 
of sensuous perception : they are themselves percep- 
tions that contain a complex of elements, and these 
elements are conceived a priori to be determined to 
unity. Along ivith these perceptions (not in them) 
there is presupposed a priori, as condition of all syn- 
thesis of apprehension, a unity of synthesis of the 
various determinations of inner and outer perception ; 
and this, again, implies that whatever can be perceived 
as in space and time must submit to combination. 
This synthetic unity can only be the combination, in 
conformity with the categories, of the various ele- 
ments of any given perception in an original con- 
sciousness, in so far as the combination is applied to 
our sensuous perception. Hence, all synthesis, in- 
cluding even that through which sensible observa- 
tion is possible, stands under the categories. And, 
as experience is knowledge by means of connected 
observations, the categories are conditions of the 



500 Readings in Philosophy 

possibility of experience, and therefore hold a priori 
of all objects of experience. 

I observe a house, for instance, by the apprehen- 
sion of various determinations given in empirical 
perception. The necessary unity of space, and of 
external sensuous perception in general, is presup- 
posed, and I draw as it were an outline of the house, 
in conformity with this synthetic unity of its deter- 
minations in space. But, if I abstract from the 
form of space, the very same synthetic unity has its 
seat in understanding, and is the category of quan- 
tity, or the categoiy of the synthesis of the homo- 
geneous in any perception whatever. To this cate- 
gory, therefore, the synthesis of apprehension — 
that is, the observation — must completely conform. 

Categories are conceptions which a priori pre- 
scribe laws to phenomena, and therefore to nature 
as the sum total of all phenomena (natura wiater- 
ialiter spectata). Now, the categories are not de- 
rived from nature, nor do they adapt themselves to 
nature as their model, for in that case they would be 
merely empirical. How, then, one asks, can it be 
shown that nature must adapt itself to them ? How 
can the categories determine a priori the combina- 
tion of the complex phenomena of nature, instead of 
going to nature to find out how phenomena are com- 
bined? Here is the solution of the problem. 

It is no more wonderful that the laws of phe- 
nomena in nature must agree with understanding 
and its a priori form, or faculty of combining any 
complex given to it, than that phenomena themselves 
must agree with the form of a priori sensuous per- 
ception. Just as phenomena have no existence at all, 



The Fundamental Co7icepts of Metaphysics 501 

apart from a subject that has sense, so there exist 
no laws in phenomena, apart from a subject that 
has understanding. Things in themselves would of 
course have laws of their own, even if they did not 
come within the knowledge of the subject through 
his understanding. But phenomena are merely the 
manner in which things appear in consciousness, and 
give no knowledge of what things may be in them- 
selves. As mere appearances they are subject to 
no law of connection but that which is imposed by 
the connective faculty. Now, it is imagination that 
connects the various units of sensuous perception, 
and imagination is dependent upon understanding for 
the unity of its intellectual synthesis, and upon sensi- 
bility for the complexity of apprehension. But 
nothing can come under observation without a syn- 
thesis of apprehension, and this empirical synthesis 
is dependent upon the transcendental synthesis, and 
therefore upon the categories. Hence, all that can 
be observed, or can come to empirical consciousness, 
that is, all phenomena of nature, must depend for 
combination upon the categories. In the categories, 
therefore, nature as a system of necessary laws 
(natura formaliter sjjectata) has its ground and 
origin. Pure understanding, however, cannot by 
mere categories prescribe a priori any laws to phe- 
nomena other than those universal laws of nature 
that apply to all objects in space and time. Special 
laws, as relating only to what is empirically deter- 
mined, cannot be completely derived from the cate- 
gories, although they must all, without exception, 
stand under the categories. To learn what are the 
special laws of nature, we must go to experience; 



502 Readings in Philosophy 

but it is none the less true that only the a priori laws 
imposed by understanding tell us what is necessary 
for any experience whatever, and what is capable 
of being known as an object of experience. 

Result of the Deduction of the Categories. 

We cannot think an object without categories; 
we cannot knoiv an object so thought without per- 
ceptions that correspond to categories. Now, all 
our perceptions are sensuous, and therefore all our 
knowledge of objects that are presented in percep- 
tion is empirical. But empirical knowledge is ex- 
perience. Hence there can be no a priori knowl- 
edge, except of objects that are capable of entering 
into experience. 

But although such knowledge is limited to objects 
of experience, it is not therefore altogether derived 
from experience. For pure perceptions as well as 
pure conceptions are elements in knowledge, and 
both are found in us a prioi'i. There are only two 
ways in which we can account for a necessary coin- 
cidence of the data of experience with the concep- 
tions which we form of its objects : either that ex- 
perience must make the conceptions possible, or the 
conceptions must make experience possible. The 
former supposition is inconsistent with the nature 
of the categories, not to speak of pure sensuous per- 
ception; for the categories, as a priori conceptions, 
are independent of experience, and to derive them 
from experience would be a sort of generatio aeqUi- 
voca. The alternative supposition, which involves 
what may be called an epigenesis of pure reason, 
must therefore be adopted, and we must hold that 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 503 

the categories, as proceeding from understanding, 
contain the grounds of the possibility of any expe- 
rience whatever. 

Short Statement of the Deduction. 

What has been shown in the deduction of the cate- 
gories is that the pure conceptions of understand- 
ing, on which all theoretical a priori knowledge is 
based, are principles that make experience possible. 
In other words, they are principles for the general 
determination of phenomena in space and time, a 
determination that ultimately flows from the prin- 
ciple of the 07'iginal synthetic unity of apperception 
as the form of understanding in relation to space and 
time, the original forms of sensibility. 

C. Causality. 

Hume's treatment of this topic has been one of 
the most discussed passages in philosophic litera- 
ture : 

There^ are no ideas, which occur in metaphysics, 
more obscure and uncertain, than those of power, 
force, energy or necessary connexion, of which it is 
every moment necessary for us to treat in all our 
disquisitions. We shall, therefore, endeavour, in 
this section, to fix, if possible, the precise meaning 
of these terms, and thereby remove some part of 
that obscurity, which is so much complained of in 
this species of philosophy. 



' Hume, David, Enquiry Coyicerning the Human Under- 
standing; from Section VII; edition cited above. 



504 Readings in Philosophy 

It seems a proposition, which will not admit of 
much dispute, that all our ideas are nothing but 
copies of our impressions, or, in other words, that 
it is impossible for us to think of any thing, which 
we have not antecedently felt, either by our external 
or internal senses. I have endeavoured to explain 
and prove this proposition, and have expressed my 
hopes, that, by a proper application of it, men may 
reach a greater clearness and precision in philo- 
sophical reasonings, than what they have hitherto 
been able to attain. Complex ideas may, perhaps, 
be well known by definition, which is nothing but an 
enumeration of those parts or simple ideas, that 
compose them. But when we have pushed up 
definitions to the most simple ideas, and find still 
some ambiguity and obscurity; what resource are 
we then possessed of? By what invention can we 
throw light upon these ideas, and render them al- 
together precise and determinate to our intellectual 
view? Produce the impressions or original senti- 
ments, from which the ideas are copied. These im- 
pressions are all strong and sensible. They admit 
not of ambiguity. They are not only placed in a full 
light themselves, but may throw light on their cor- 
respondent ideas, which lie in obscurity. And by 
this means, we may, perhaps, attain a new micro- 
scope or species of optics, by which, in the moral 
sciences, the most minute and most simple ideas 
may be so enlarged as to fall readily under our ap- 
prehension, and be equally known with the grossest 
and most sensible ideas, that can be the object of 
our enquiry. 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 505 

To be fully acquainted, therefore, with the idea 
of power or necessary connexion, let us examine its 
impression ; and in order to find the impression with 
greater certainty,'" let us search for it in all the 
sources, from which it may possibly be derived. 

When we look about us towards external objects, 
and consider the operation of causes, we are never 
able, in a single instance, to discover any power or 
necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the 
effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible 
consequence of the other. We only find, that the 
one does actually, in fact, follow the other. The 
impulse of one billiard-ball is attended with motion 
in the second. This is the whole that appears to 
the ovMvard senses. The mind feels no sentiment 
or imvard impression from this succession of ob- 
jects: consequently there is not, in any single, par- 
ticular instance of cause and effect, any thing which 
can suggest the idea of power or necessary con- 
nexion. 

From the first appearance of an object, we never 
can conjecture what effect will result from it. But 
were the power of energy of any cause discoverable 
by the mind, we could foresee the effect, even without 
experience; and might, at first, pronounce with cer- 
tainty concerning it, by mere dint of thought and 
reasoning. 

In reality, there is no part of matter, that does 
ever, by its sensible qualities, discover any power or 
energy, or give us ground to imagine, that it could 
produce any thing, or be followed by any other ob- 
ject, which we could denominate its effect. Solidity, 
extension, motion ; these qualities are all complete in 



506 ^Readings in Philosophy 

themselves, and never point out any other event 
which may result from them. The scenes of the 
universe are continually shifting, -and one object 
follows another in an uninterrupted succession; but 
the power of force, which actuates the whole ma- 
chine, is entirely concealed from us, and never dis- 
covers itself in any of the sensible qualities of body. 
We know, that, in fact, heat is a constant attendant 
of flame; but what is the connexion between them, 
we have no room so much as to conjecture or im-. 
agine. It is impossible, therefore, that the idea of 
power can be derived from the contemplation of 
bodies, in single instances of their operation ; be- 
cause no bodies ever discover any power, which can 
be the original of this idea. 

Since, therefore, external objects as they appear 
to the senses, give us no idea of power or necessary 
connexion, by their operation in particular instances, 
let us see, whether this idea be derived from reflec- 
tion on the operations of our own minds, and be 
copied from any internal impression. It may be 
said, that we are every moment conscious of inter- 
nal power; while we feel, that, by the simple com- 
mand of our will, we can move the organs of our 
body, or direct the faculties of our mind. An act 
of volition produces motion in our limbs, or raises 
a new idea in our imagination. This influence of 
the will we know by consciousness. Hence we ac- 
quire the idea of power or energ^^; and are certain, 
that we ourselves and all other intelligent beings are 
possessed of power. This idea, then, is an idea of 
reflection, since it arises from reflecting on the 
operations of our own mind, and on the command 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 507 

which is exercised by will, both over the organs of 
the body and faculties of the soul. 

We shall proceed to examine this pretension ; and 
first with regard to the influence of volition over the 
organs of the body. This influence, we may observe, 
is a fact, which, like all other natural events, can be 
known only by experience, and can never be fore- 
seen from any apparent energy or power in the 
cause, which connects it with the effect, and renders 
the one an infallible consequence of the other. The 
motion of our body follows upon the command of 
our will. Of this we are every moment conscious. 
But the means, by which this is effected ; the energy, 
by which the will performs so extraordinary an 
operation; of this we are so far from being imme- 
diately conscious, that it must for ever escape our 
most diligent enquiry. 

For first, Is there any principle in all nature more 
mysterious than the union of soul with body; by 
which a supposed spiritual substance acquires such 
an influence over a material one, that the most re- 
fined thought is able to actuate the grossest matter? 
Were we empowered, by a secret wish, to remove 
mountains, or control the planets in their orbit; this 
extensive authority would not be more extraordi- 
nary, nor more beyond our comprehension. But if 
by consciousness we perceived any power or energy 
in the will, we must know this power; we must know 
its connexion with the effect; we must know the 
secret union of soul and body, and the nature of both 
these substances ; by which the one is able to operate, 
in so many instances, upon the other. 



508 Readings in Philosophy 

Secondly, We are not able to move all the org-ans 
of the body with a like authority ; though we cannot 
assign any reason besides experience, for so remark- 
able a difference between one and the other. Why 
has the will an influence over the tongue and fingers, 
not over the heart and liver? This question would 
never embarrass us, were we conscious of a power 
in the former case, not in the latter. We should 
then perceive, independent of experience, why the 
authority of will over the organs of the body is cir- 
cumscribed within such particular limits. Being 
in that case fully acquainted with the power or force, 
by which it operates, we should also know, why its 
influence reaches precisely to such boundaries, and 
no farther. 

A man, suddenly struck with palsy in the leg or 
arm, or who has newly lost those members, fre- 
quently endeavours, at first, to move them, and em- 
ploy them in their usual of!ices. Here he is as much 
conscious of power to command such limbs, as a man. 
in perfect health is conscious of power to actuate 
any member which remains in its natural state and 
condition. But consciousness never deceives. Con- 
sequently, neither in the one case nor in the other, 
are we ever conscious of any power. We learn the 
influence of our will from experience alone. And 
experience only teaches us, how one event constantly 
follows another ; without instructing us in the secret 
connexion, which binds them together, and renders 
them inseparable. 

Thirdly, We learn from anatomy, that the imme- 
diate object of power in voluntary motion, is not 
the member itself which is moved, but certain 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 509 

muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits, and, per- 
haps, something still more minute and more un- 
known, through which the motion is successfully 
propagated, ere it reach the member itself whose 
motion is the immediate object of volition. Can 
there be a more certain proof that the power, by 
which this whole operation is performed, so far from 
being directly and fully known by an inward senti- 
ment or consciousness, is, to the last degree, mys- 
terious and unintelligible? Here the mind wills a 
certain event; immediately another event, unknown 
to ourselves, and totally different from the one in- 
tended, is produced. This event produces another, 
(equally unknown : till at last, through a long suc- 
cession, the desired event is produced. But if the 
original power were felt, it must be known ; were it 
known, its effect also must be known ; since all power 
is relative to its effect. And vice versa, if the effect 
be not known, the power cannot be known nor felt. 
How indeed can we be conscious of a power to move 
our limbs, when we have no such power; but only 
that to move certain animal spirits, which, though 
they produce at last the motion of our limbs, yet 
operate in such a manner as is wholly beyond our 
comprehension ? 

We may, therefore, conclude from the whole, I 
hope, without any temerity, though with assurance ; 
that our idea of power is not copied from any senti- 
ment or consciousness of power within ourselves, 
when we give rise to animal motion, or apply our 
limbs, to their proper use and office. That their 
motion follows the command of the will is a matter 
,of common experience, like other natural events ; but 



510 Readings in Philosophy 

the power or energy by which this is effected, like 
that in other natural events, is unknown and incon- 
ceivable. 

Shall we then assert, that we are conscious of a 
power or energy in our own minds, when, by an 
act or command of our will, we raise up a new idea, 
fix the mind to the contemplation of it, turn it on all 
sides, and at last dismiss it for some other idea, 
when we think that we have surveyed it with suffi- 
cient accuracy? I believe the same arguments will 
prove, that even this command of the will gives us 
no real idea of force or energy. 

First, It must be allowed, that, when we know a 
power, we know that very circumstance in the cause, 
by which it is enabled to produce the effect: for 
these are supposed to be synonymous. We must, 
therefore, know both the cause and effect, and the 
relation between them. But do we pretend to be 
acquainted with /the nature of the human soul and 
the nature of an idea, or the aptitude of the one to 
produce the other? This is a real creation; a pro- 
duction of something out of nothing; which implies 
a power so great, that it may seem, at first sight, 
beyond the reach of any being, less than infinite. 
At least it must be owned, that such a power is not 
felt, nor known, nor even conceivable by the mind. 
We only feel the event, namely, the existence of an 
idea, consequent to a command of the will ; but the 
manner, in which this operation is performed, the 
power by which it is produced, is entirely beyond 
our comprehension. 

Secondly, The command of the mind over itself 
is limited, as well as its command over the body; 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 511 

and these limits are not known by reason, or any 
acquaintance with the nature of cause and effect; 
but only by experience and observation, as in all 
other natural events and in the operation of external 
objects. Our authority over our sentiments and pas- 
sions is much weaker than that over our ideas ; and 
even the latter authority is circumscribed within 
very narrow boundaries. Will any one pretend to 
assign the ultimate reason of these boundaries, or 
show why the power is deficient in one case, not in 
another? 

Thirdly, This self-command is very different at 
different times. A man in health possesses more of 
it than one languishing with sickness. We are more 
master of our thoughts in the morning than in the 
evening; fasting, than after a full meal. Can we 
give any reason for these variations, except expe- 
rience? Where then is the power, of which we pre- 
tend to be conscious? Is there not here, either in 
a spiritual or material substance, or both, some 
secret mechanism or structure of parts, upon which 
the effect depends, and which, being entirely un- 
known to us, renders the power or energy of the 
will equally unknown and incomprehensible? 

Volition is surely an act of the mind, with which 
we are sufficiently acquainted. Reflect upon it. 
Consider it on all sides. Do you find anything in it 
like this creative power, by which it raises from 
nothing a new idea, and with a kind of Fiat, imitates 
the omnipotence of its Maker, if I may be allowed 
so to speak, who called forth into existence all the 
various scenes of nature? So far from being con- 
scious of this energy in the will, it requires as cer- 



512 Readings in Philosophy 

tain experience as that of which we are possessed, 
to convince us that such extraordinary effects do 
ever result from a simple act of volition. 

The generality of mankind never find any diffi- 
culty in accounting- for the more common and 
familiar operations of nature — such as the descent 
of heavy bodies, the growth of plants, the genera- 
tion of animals, or the nourishment of bodies by 
food. But suppose, that, in all these cases, they 
perceive the very force or energy of the cause, by 
which it is connected with its effect, and is for ever 
infallible in its operation. They acquire, by long 
habit, such a turn of mind, that, upon the appear- 
ance of the cause, they immediately expect with as- 
surance its usual attendant, and hardly conceive it 
possible that any other event could result from it. 
It is only on the discovery of extraordinary phae- 
nomena, such as earthquakes, pestilence, and prod- 
igies of any kind, that they find themselves at a loss 
to assign a proper cause, and to explain the manner 
in which the effect is produced by it. It is usual 
for men, in such difficulties, to have recourse to 
some invisible intelligent principle as the immediate 
cause of that event which surprises them ; and which, 
they think, cannot be accounted for from the com- 
mon powers of nature. But philosophers, who carry 
their scrutiny a little farther, immediately perceive 
that, even in the most familiar events, the energy of 
the cause is as unintelligible as in the most unusual, 
and that we only learn by experience the frequent 
Conjunction of objects, without being ever able to 
comprehend anything like Connexion between 
them. Here, then, many philosophers think them- 



The Fundamental Concej^ts of Metaphysics 513 

selves obliged by reason to have recourse, on all oc- 
casions, to the same principle, which the vulgar 
never appeal to but in cases that appear miraculous 
and supernatural. They acknowledge mind and in- 
telligence to be, not only the ultimate and original 
cause of all things, but the immediate and sole cause 
of every event which appears in nature. They pre- 
tend that those objects which are commonly de- 
nominated causes, are in reality nothing but occa- 
sions; and that the true and direct principle of every 
effect is not any power of force in nature, but a voli- 
tion of the Supreme Being, who wills that such par- 
ticular objects should for ever be conjoined with 
each other. Instead of saying that one billiard-ball 
moves another by a force which it has derived from 
the author of nature, it is the Deity himself, they 
say, who, by a particular volition, moves the second 
ball, being determined to this operation by the im- 
pulse of the first ball, in consequence of those gen- 
eral laws which he has laid down to himself in the 
government of the universe. But philosophers ad- 
vancing still in their inquiries, discover that, as we 
are totally ignorant of the power on which depends 
the mutual operation of bodies, we are no less igno- 
rant of that power on which depends the operation 
of mind on body, or of body on mind; nor are we 
able, either from our senses or consciousness, to as- 
sign the ultimate principle in one case more than 
in the other. The same ignorance, therefore, re- 
duces them to the same conclusion. They assert 
that the Deity is the immediate cause of the union 
between soul and body; and that they are not the 



514 Readings in Philosophy 

org-ans of sense, which, being agitated by external 
objects, produce sensations in the mind; but that 
it is a particular volition of our omnipotent Maker, 
which excites such a sensation, in consequence of 
such a motion in the organ. In like manner, it is 
not any energy in the will that produces local mo- 
tion in our members : it is God himself, who is 
pleased to second our will, in itself impotent, and to 
command that motion which we erroneously at- 
tribute to our own power and efficacy. Nor do phi- 
losophers stop at this conclusion. They sometimes 
extend the same inference to the mind itself, in its 
internal operations. Our mental vision or concep- 
tion of ideas is nothing but a revelation made to us 
by our Maker. When we voluntarily turn our 
thoughts to any object, and raise up its image in 
the fancy ; it is not the will which creates that idea ; 
it is the universal Creator, who discovers it to the 
mind, and renders it present to us. 

Thus, according to these philosophers, every thing 
is full of God. Not content with the principle, that 
nothing exists but by his will, that nothing possesses 
any power, but by his concession, they rob nature, 
and all created beings, of every power, in order to 
render their dependence on the Deity still more 
sensible and immediate. They consider not that, by 
this theory, they diminish, instead of magnifying, 
the grandeur of those attributes, which they affect 
so much to celebrate. It argues surely more power 
in the Deity to delegate a certain degree of power 
to inferior creatures, than to produce everything by 
his own immediate volition. It argues more wisdom 
to contrive at first the fabric of the world with such 



• The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 515 

perfect foresight, that, of itself, and by its proper 
operation, it may serve all the purposes of provi- 
dence, than if the great Creator were obliged every 
moment to adjust its parts, and animate by his 
breath all the wheels of that stupendous machine. 

But if we would have a more philosophical con- 
futation of this theory, perhaps the two following 
reflections may suffice. 

First, It seems to me, that this theory of the uni- 
versal energy and operation of the Supreme Being, 
is too bold ever to carry conviction with it to a man, 
sufficiently apprized of the weakness of human rea- 
son, and the narrow limits to which it is confined 
in all its operations. Though the chain of argu- 
ments which conduct to it were ever so logical, there 
must arise a strong suspicion, if not an absolute as- 
surance, that it has carried us quite beyond the reach 
of our faculties, when it leads to conclusions so ex- 
traordinary, and so remote from common life and 
experience. We are got into fairy land, long ere 
we have reached the last steps of our theory; and 
there we have no reason to trust our common 
methods of argument, or to think that our usual 
analogies and probabilities have any authority. Our 
line is too short to fathom such immense abysses. 
And however we may flatter ourselves that we are 
guided, in every step which we take, by a kind of 
verisimilitude and experience; we may be assured 
that this fancied experience has no authority when 
we thus apply it to subjects that lie entirely out of 
the sphere of experience. But on this we shall have 
occasion to touch afterwards. 



516 Readings in Philosophy 

Secondly, I cannot perceive any force in the argu- 
ments on which this theory is founded. We are 
ignorant, it is true, of the manner in which bodies 
operate on each other : their force or energy is en- 
tirely incomprehensible; but are we not equally igno- 
rant of the manner or force by which a mind, even 
the supreme mind, operates either on itself or on 
body? Whence, I beseech you, do we acquire any 
idea of it? We have no sentiment or consciousness 
of this power in, ourselves. We have no idea of the 
Supreme Being but what we learn from reflection on 
our own faculties. Were our ignorance, therefore, a 
good reason for rejecting any thing, we should be 
led into that principle of denying all energy in the 
Supreme Being as much as in the grossest matter. 
We surely comprehend as little the operations of one 
as of the other. Is it more difficult to conceive that 
motion may arise from impulse than that it may 
arise from volition? All we know is our profound 
ignorance in both cases. 

Part II 
But to hasten to a conclusion of this argument, 
which is already drawn out to too great a length : 
we have sought in vain for an idea of power or 
necessary connexion in all the sources from which 
we could suppose it to be derived. It appears that, 
in single instances of the operation of bodies, we 
never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any 
thing but one event following another, without being 
able to comprehend any force or power by which 
the cause operates, or any connexion between it and 
its supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 517 

contemplating' the operations of mind on body; 
where we observe the motion of the latter to follow 
upon the volition of the former, but are not able 
to observe or conceive the tie which binds together 
the motion and volition, or the energy by which the 
mind produces this effect. The authority of the will 
over its own faculties and ideas is not a whit more 
comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there ap- 
pears not, throughout all nature, any one instance 
of connexion which is conceivable by us. All events 
seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows 
another; but we never can observe any tie between 
them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. 
And as we can have no idea of any thing which 
never appeared to our outward sense or inward sen- 
timent, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that 
we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and 
that these words are absolutely without any mean- 
ing, when employed either in philosophical reason- 
ings or common life. 

But there still remains one method of avoiding 
this conclusion, and one source which we have not 
yet examined. When any natural object or event 
is presented, it is impossible for us, by any sagacity 
or penetration, to discover, or even conjecture, with- 
out experience, what event will result from it, or to 
carry our foresight beyond that object which is im- 
mediately present to the memory and senses. Even 
after one instance or experiment, where we have 
observed a particular event to follow upon another, 
we are not entitled to form a general rule, or fore- 
tell what will happen in like cases; it being justly 
esteemed an unpardonable temerity to judge of the 

34 



518 Readings in Philosophy 

whole course of nature from one single experiment, 
however accurate or certain. But when one par- 
ticular species of event has always, in all instances, 
been conjoined with another, we make no longer 
any scruple of foretelling one upon the appearance 
of the other, and of employing that reasoning which 
can alone assure us of any matter of fact or exist- 
ence. We then call the one object, Cause; the other, 
Effect. We suppose that there is some connexion 
between them ; some power in the one, by which it 
infallibly produces the other, and operates with the 
greatest certainty and strongest necessity. 

It appears, then, that this idea of a necessary con- 
nexion among events arises from a number of simi- 
lar instances, which occur, of the constant conjunc- 
tion of these events ; nor can that idea ever be sug- 
gested by any one of these instances, surveyed in all 
possible lights and positions. But there is nothing 
in a number of instances, different from every single 
instance, w^hich is supposed to be exactly similar; 
except only, that after a repetition of similar in- 
stances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the ap- 
pearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant, 
and to believe that it will exist. This connexion, 
therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary 
transition of the imagination from one object to its 
usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from 
which we form the idea of power or necessary con- 
nexion. Nothing farther is in the case. Contem- 
plate the subject on all sides; you will never find 
any other origin of that idea. This is the sole dif- 
ference between one instance, from which we can 
never receive the idea of connexion, and a number 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 519 

of similar instances, by which it is suggested. The 
first time a man saw the communication of motion 
by impulse, as by the shock of two billiard-balls, he 
could not pronounce that the one event was co7i- 
nected: but only that it was conjoined with the 
other. After he has observed several instances of 
this nature, he then pronounces them to be con- 
nected. What alteration has happened to give rise 
to this new idea of connexion? Nothing but that he 
now feels these events to be connected in. his imagi- 
nation, and can readily foretell the existence of one 
from the appearance of the other. When we say, 
therefore, that one object is connected with another, 
we mean only that they have acquired a connexion 
in our thought, and give rise to this inference, by 
which they become proofs of each other's existence: 
a conclusion which is somewhat extraordinary, but 
which seems founded on sufficient evidence. Nor 
will its evidence be weakened by any general diffi- 
dence of the understanding, or sceptical suspicion 
concerning every conclusion which is new and ex- 
traordinary. No conclusions can be more agreeable 
to scepticism than such as make discoveries con- 
cerning the weakness and narrow limits of human 
reason and capacity. 

And what stronger instance can be produced of 
the surprising ignorance and weakness of the un- 
derstanding than the present? For surely, if there 
be any relation among objects which it imports to 
us to know perfectly, it is that of cause and effect. 
On this are founded all our reasonings concerning 
matter of fact or existence. By means of it alone 
we attain any assurance concerning objects which 



520 Readings in Philosophy 

are removed from the present testimony of our 
memory and senses. The only immediate utility of 
all sciences, is to teach us, how to control and regu- 
late future events by their causes. Our thoughts 
and enquiries are, therefore, every moment, em- 
ployed about this relation ; yet so imperfect are the 
ideas which we form concerning it, that it is im- 
possible to give any just definition of cause, except 
what is drawn from something extraneous and for- 
eign to it. Similar objects are always conjoined 
with similar. Of this we have experience. Suitably 
to this experience, therefore, we may define a cause 
to be an object, followed by another, and where all 
the objects, similar to the first, are followed by ob- 
jects similar to the second. Or in other words 
tvhere, if the first object had not been, the second 
never had existed. The appearance of a cause al- 
ways conveys the mind, by a customary transition, 
to the idea of the effect. Of this also we have expe- 
rience. We may, therefore, suitably to this expe- 
rience, form another definition of cause, and call it, 
an object followed by another, arid whose appearance 
always conveys the thought to that other. But 
though both these definitions be drawn from circum- 
stances foreign to the cause, we cannot remedy this 
inconvenience, or attain any more perfect definition, 
which may point out that circumstance in the cause, 
which gives it a connexion with its effect. We have 
no idea of this connexion ; nor even any distinct no- 
tion what it is we desire to know, when we en- 
deavour at a conception of it. We say, for instance, 
that the vibration of this string is the cause of this 
particular sound. But what do we mean by that 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 521 

affirmation? We either mean, that this vibr-ation 
is folloiuecl by this sound, and that all similar vibra- 
tions have been folloived by similar sounds; or, that 
this vibratiofi is folloived by this sound, and that 
upon the appearance of one the mind anticipates the 
senses, and forms immediately an idea of the other. 
We may consider the relation of cause and effect in 
either of these two lights ; but beyond these, we 
have no idea of it; 

D. Potentiality. 

The earliest classical discussion of the concep- 
tions of potentiality and actuality is to be found in 
the following passage from Aristotle's Metaphysics : 

Power^ is the term applied to the source of move- 
ment or change, lying in something other than the 
thing moved, or in it conceived as other than its 
present condition. For example, ability to build a 
house is a capacity which resides not in the thing 
built. On the other hand the capacity to heal does 
lie in the one who is healed, but not in so far as he 
is one who is being healed. The fundamental prin- 
ciple of change or movement in general, then, is a 
power residing either in another or in oneself so 
far as one is potentially other than at the moment. 
The one occurs at the hand of some one else, the 
other inasmuch as one is in a sense 'other'. 

In so far as a thing suffers sometimes we say it 
is capable of suffering that, no matter what it is. 



'Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book A- ch. xii; translated from 
the text of Christ. 



522 Readings in Philosojjhy 

But sometimes we refer not to all forms of suffer- 
ing, but only to change into something better. 

Again we mean by it the capacity for performing 
something well, or v/ith deliberate intention. For 
sometimes we say that those who merely walk or 
speak, but not well or not as they would have wished, 
cannot speak or walk. So it is also with suffering 
something. Then again all conditions in which 
things are wholly insensitive or not changeable or 
not easily degraded into an inferior state are called 
potentialities. For a thing is broken or crushed or 
bent or destroyed in any way not because of its 
power but through its lack of power, and through 
deficiency in something. Things insusceptible of 
these processes are modifiable with difficulty and 
only to a slight degree because of their power and 
potentiality and because of their being in their con- 
dition. Potentiality is used, then, with these several, 
meanings ; and in one sense the potential signifies 
that which has the power to cause movement or 
change in another or in itself as 'other'. And even 
that which brings things to rest is possessed of 
power. In another sense it means that something 
other than it has some such power over it. Again 
it signifies the power to change into something else, 
whether better or worse, (for even that which is de- 
stroyed seems to have the power to be destroyed ; for 
if this were not possible it would not be destroyed; 
but now it has a kind of disposition for or a cause or 
principle of this experience) . Sometimes it seems to 
be due to possessing sometimes to lacking something. 
Unless a lack of something is a kind of condition, — 
when all cases would be due to the possession of 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 523 

something, the existence being spoken of in a double 
sense, so that a thing possesses capability both 
through possessing a certain condition, and prin- 
ciple, and through having a lack of these, if it is 
possible to 'have' a 'lack'. In another sense it refers 
to the fact that nothing else, nor itself as 'other', 
has the capacity to destroy it. Furthermore all these 
are true either merely because the thing might 
happen to occur or not occur or it might do either 
well. And in inanimate things there is the same 
kind of power, — as, for instance, in musical in- 
struments; for they say one lyre can give forth a 
proper sound, but another not at all if it be not pos- 
sessed of good tone. 

Incapacity is a lack of capacity and of such a 
principle as has been mentioned, either in general 
or in something which naturally would have it or at 
a time when it is customary for it to have it. For 
we should not in the same sense say that a boy and 
a man and a eunuch can not beget. Furthermore 
to every capacity there is an opposed incapacity, in 
one form inability to act at all, in another inability 
to do the thing well. And some things are said to 
be impossible in the one sense, others possible and 
impossible in the other sense. That is impossible 
the opposite of which is necessarily true; e. g., that 
the diameter of a circle should be commensurate with 
the circumference is impossible, for such a thing is 
false, and its oj^osite is not merely untrue; they 
are necessarily incommensurable. The incommen- 
surability is not only false but necessarily false. The 
opposite of this, the possible, exists when it is not 
necessary that the opposite be false, as the pos- 



524 Readings in Philosophy 

sibility of a man's sitting down ; for his not sitting 
down is not necessarily false. The possible, then, 
has as one meaning, as has been said, that which 
is not necessarily false, as another that which is 
true, still another that which can be true. The 
term is used metaphorically in geometry. Things 
possible here are not so with reference to power. 
The things which are called possible with reference 
to power are all so called with reference to the 
primary meaning: that is, a principle of change in 
another or in oneself in so far as 'other'. Other 
things are said to possess power through the fact 
that something else has such a power over them; 
others through not having such ; others through hav- 
ing it in a certain sense. Similarly with the imposr- 
sible. So that the master conception of primary 
potentiality is : the principle of change in another 
or in oneself in so far as 'other'. 

E. Space. 

Kant's discussion of Space as a form of human 
experience is a classic one. Space is not a "con- 
cept" in Kant's view, but it is to perceptual expe- 
rience what the concepts are to thought: 

Metaphysical Exposition of Space 

In^ external sense we are conscious of objects as 
outside of ourselves, and as all without exception 
in space. In space their shape, size, and relative 
position are marked out, or are capable of being 



' Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Watson's Selections, 
pages 23-26 ; edition previously cited. 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 525 

marked out. Inner sense, in which we are con- 
scious of ourselves, or rather of our own state, gives 
us, it is true, no direct perception of the soul itself 
as an object; but it nevertheless is the one single 
form in which our own state comes before us as a 
definite object of perception; and hence all inner 
determinations appear to us as related to one an- 
other in time. We cannot be conscious of time as 
external, any more than we can be conscious of space 
as something within us. What, then, are space and 
time? Are they in themselves real things? Are 
they only determinations, or perhaps merely rela- 
tions of things, which yet would belong to things in 
themselves even if those things were not perceived 
by us? Or, finally, have space and time no mean- 
ing except as forms of perception, belonging to the 
subjective constitution of our own mind, apart from 
which they cannot be predicated of anything what- 
ever? To answer these questions I shall begin with 
a metaphysical exposition of space. An exposition 
I call it, because it gives a distinct although not a 
detailed, statement of what is implied in the idea of 
space; and the exposition is metaphysical, because 
it brings forward the reasons we have for regarding 
space as given a priori. 

(1) Space is not an empirical conception, which 
has been derived from external experiences. For 
I could not be conscious that certain of my sensa- 
tions are relative to something outside of me, that 
is, to something in a different part of space from 
that in which I myself am ; nor could I be conscious 
of them as outside of and beside one another, were 
I not at the same time conscious that they not only 



526 Readings in Philosophy 

are different in content, but are in different places. 
The consciousness of space is, therefore, necessarily 
presupposed in external perception. No experience 
of the external relations of sensible things could 
yield the idea of space, because without the con- 
sciousness of space there would be no external' expe- 
rience whatever. 

(2) Space is a necessary a priori idea, which is 
presupposed in all external perceptions.* By no 
effort can we think space to be away, although we 
can quite readily think of space as empty of objects. 
Space we therefore regard as a condition of the pos- 
sibility of phenomena, and not as a determination de- 
pendent on phenomena. It is thus a priori, and is 
necessarily presupposed in external phenomena. 

(3) Space is not a discursive or general con- 
ception of the relations of things, but a pure per- 
ception. For we can be conscious only of a single 
space. It is true that we speak as if there were 
many spaces, but we really mean only parts of one 
and the same identical space. Nor can we say that 
these parts exist before the one all-embracing space, 
and are put together to form a whole; but we think 
of them only as m it. Space is essentially single; 
by the plurality of spaces, we merely mean that be- 
cause space can be limited in many ways, the general 
conception of spaces presupposes such limitations as 
its foundation. From this it follows, that an a 
prio7'i perception, and not an empirical perception, 
underlies all conceptions of pure space. Accord- 
ingly, no geometrical proposition, as, for instance, 
that any two sides of a triangle are greater than 
the third side, can ever be derived from the general 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 527 

conceptions of line and triangle, but only from per- 
ception. From the perception, however, it can be 
derived a priori, and with demonstrative certainty. 
(4) Space is presented before our consciousness 
as an infinite magnitude. Now, in every conception 
we certainly think of a certain attribute as common 
to an infinite number of possible objects, which are 
subsumed under the conception ; but, from its very 
nature, no conception can possibly be supposed to 
contain an infinite number of determinations within 
it. But it is just in this way that space is thought 
of, all its parts being conceived to co-exist ad in- 
finitum. Hence the original consciousness of space 
is an a priori perception, not a conception. 

F. Time. 

This also is a classic passage from Kant's work : 

Metaphysical Exposition of Time 

(1) Time^ is not an empirical conception, which 
has been derived from any experience. For we 
should not observe things to co-exist or to follow one 
another, did we not possess the idea of time a priori. 
It is, therefore, only under the presupposition of 
time, that we can be conscious of certain things as 
existing at the same time (simultaneously), or at 
different times (successively). 

(2) Time is a necessary idea, which is presup- 
posed in all perceptions. We cannot be conscious 
of phenomena if time is taken away, although we 



^ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Watson, Op. Cit., pages 
29-34. 



528 Readings in Philosophy 

can quite readily suppose phenomena to be absent 
from time. Time is, therefore, given a priori. No 
phenomenon can exist at all that is not in time. 
While, therefore, phenomena may be supposed to 
vanish completely out of time, time itself, as the uni- 
versal condition of their possibility, cannot be sup- 
posed away. 

(3) Time is not a discursive, or general concep- 
tion, but a pure form of sensible perception. Dif- 
ferent times are but parts of the very same time. 
Now, the consciousness of that which is presented as 
one single object, is perception. Moreover, the 
proposition, that no two moments of time can co- 
exist, cannot be derived from a general conception. 
The proposition is synthetic, and cannot originate 
in mere conceptions. It therefore rests upon the 
direct perception and idea of time. 

(4) The infinity of time simply means, that 
every definite quantity of time is possible only as a 
limitation of one single time. There must, there- 
fore, be originally a consciousness of time as un- 
limited. Now, if an object presents itself as a whole, 
so that its parts and every quantity of it can be 
represented only by limiting that whole, such an 
object cannot be given in conception, for conceptions 
contain only partial determinations of a thing. A 
direct perception must therefore be the foundation 
of the idea of time. 

Transcendejital Exposition of Time 

Apodictic principles which determine relations in 
time, or axioms of time in general, are possible only 
because time is the necessary a priori condition of all 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 529 

phenomena. Time has but one dimension ; different 
times do not co-exist but follow one another, just as 
different spaces do not follow one another but co- 
exist. Such propositions cannot be derived from 
experience, which never yields strict universality or 
demonstrative certainty. If they were based upon 
experience, we could say only, that it has ordinarily 
been observed to be so, not that it must be so. Prin- 
ciples like these have the force of rules, that lay 
down the conditions without which no experience 
whatever is possible: they are not learned from ex- 
perience, but anticipate what experience must be. 

Let me add here that change, including motion or 
change of place, is conceivable only in and through 
the idea of time. Were time not an inner a priori 
perception, we could not form the least idea how 
there should be any such thing as change. Take 
away time, and change combines in itself absolutely 
contradictory predicates. Motion, or change of place, 
for instance, must then be thought of as at once the 
existence and the non-existence of one and the same 
thing in the same place. The contradiction disap- 
pears, only when it is seen that the thing has those 
opposite determinations one after the other. Our 
conception of time as an a priori form of perception, 
therefore explains the possibility of the whole body 
of a priori synthetic propositions in regard to mo- 
tion that are contained in the pure part of physics, 
and hence it is not a little fruitful in results. 

Inferences 
(a) Time is not an independent substance nor 
an objective determination of things, and hence it 



530 Readings in Philosojjhy 

does not survive when abstraction has been made 
from all the subjective conditions of perception. 
Were it an independent thing, it would be real with- 
out being a real object of consciousness. Were it a 
determination or order of things as they are in them- 
selves, it could not precede our perception of those 
things as its necessary condition, nor could it be 
known by means of synthetic judgments. But the 
possibility of such judgments becomes at once intel- 
ligible if time is nothing but the subjective condi- 
tion, without which we can have no perception what- 
ever. For in that case we may be conscious of this 
form of inner perception before we are conscious of 
objects, and therefore a priori. 

(b) Time is nothing but the form of inner sense, 
that is, of the perception of ourselves and our own 
inner state. As it has no influence on the shape or 
position of an object, time cannot be a determina- 
tion of outer phenomena as such; what it does de- 
termine is the relation of ideas in our own inner 
state. And just because this inner perception has no 
shape of its own, we seek to make up for this want 
by analogies drawn from space. Thus, we figure 
the series of time as a line that proceeds to infinity, 
the parts of which form a series; and we reason 
from the properties of this line to all the properties 
of time, taking care to allow for the one point of 
difference, that the parts of the spatial line all exist 
at once, while the parts of the temporal line all fol- 
low one after the other. Even from this fact alone, 
that all the relations of time may thus be presented 
in an external perception, it would be evident that 
time is itself a perception. 



The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics 531 

(c) Time is the formal a priori condition of all 
phenomena without exception. Space, as the pure 
form of all external phenomena, is the a priori con- 
dition only of external phenomena. But all objects 
of perception, external as well as internal, are de- 
terminations of the mind, and, from that point of 
view, belong to our inner state. And as this inner 
state comes under time, which is the formal condi- 
tion of inner perception, time is an a priori condition 
of all phenomena : it is the immediate condition of 
inner phenomena, and so the mediate condition of 
outer phenomena. Just as I can say, a priori, that 
all external phenomena are in space, and are de- 
teraiined a priori in conformity with the relations 
of space, so, from the principle of inner sense, I can 
say quite generally that all phenomena are in time, 
and stand necessarily in relations of time. 

If we abstract from the manner in which we im- 
mediately perceive our own inner state, and medi- 
ately all external phenomena, and think of objects 
in themselves, we find that in relation to them time 
is nothing at all. It is objectively true in relation 
to phenomena, because we are conscious of phe- 
nomena as objects of our senses; but it is no longer 
objective, if we abstract from our sensibility, and 
therefore from the form proper to our perceptive 
consciousness, and speak of things asl such. Time is 
therefore a purely subjective condition of human 
perception, and in itself, or apart from the sub- 
ject, it is nothing at all. Nevertheless, it is nec- 
essarily objective in relation to all phenomena, and 
therefore also to everything that can possibly enter 
into our experience. We cannot say that all things 



532 Readings in Philosophy 

are in time, because when we speak of things in 
this unqualified way, we are thinking of things in 
abstraction from the manner in which we perceive 
them, and therefore in abstraction from the con- 
dition under which alone we can say that they are in 
time. But, if we qualify our assertion by adding 
that condition, and say that all things as phenomena, 
or objects of sensible perception, are in time, the 
proposition is, in the strictest sense of the word, 
objective, and is universally true a 'priori. 

We see, then, that time is empirically real, or is 
objectively true in relation to all objects that are 
capable of being presented to our senses. And as 
our perception always is sensuous, no object can 
ever be presented to us in experience, which does 
not conform to time as its condition. On the other 
hand, we deny to time all claim to absolute reality, 
because such a claim, in paying no heed to the form 
of sensible perception, assumes time to be an ab- 
solute condition or property of things. Such prop- 
erties, as supposed to belong to things in them- 
selves, can never be presented to us in sense. From 
this we infer the transcendental ideality of time ; by 
which we mean that, in abstraction from the sub- 
jective conditions of sensible perception, time is 
simply nothing, and cannot be said either to subsist 
by itself, or to inhere in things that do so subsist. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

EPISTEMOLOGY 

A. The Motive of Epistemology. 

Locke's statement of the way in which he was led 
to undertake the Essay has always been of interest. 
It is given here: 

Were^ it fit to trouble thee with the history of 
this essay, I should tell thee, that five or six friends, 
meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a subject 
very remote from this, found themselves quickly at 
a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. 
After we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without com- 
ing any nearer a resolution of those doubts which 
perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we 
took a wrong course; and that before we set our- 
selves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary 
to examine our own abilities, and see what objects 
our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal 
with. This I proposed to the company, who all 
readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that 
this should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and 
undigested thoughts on a subject I had never before 
considered, which I set down against our next meet- 
ing, gave the first entrance into this discourse ; which 
having been thus begun by chance, was continued by 
intreaty; written by incoherent parcels; and after 
long intervals of neglect, resumed again, as my 



' Locke, Essay ; Introduction. 
(533) 



534 Readings in Philosophy 

humour or occasions permitted ; and at last, in a re- 
tirement, where an attendance on my health gave 
me leisure, it was brought into that order thou now 
seest it. 

B. The Origin of Ideas. 

Locke's argument that all ideas have their origin 
in experience is one of the important documents of 
the "empirical" school : 

1. The^ way shown how loe come by any Knowl- 
edge, sufficient to prove it not innate. — It is an es- 
tablished opinion amongst some men, that there are 
in the understanding certain innate principles ; some 
primary notions, Kotval 'iwoiai, characters, as it were, 
stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul re- 
ceives in its very first being, and brings into the 
world Vv^ith it. It would be sufficient to convince 
unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this suppo- 
sition, if I should only show (as I hope I shall in 
the following parts of this discourse) how men, 
barely by the use of their natural faculties, may 
attain to all the knowledge they have, without the 
help of any innate impressions, and may arrive at 
certainty, without any such original notions or prin- 
ciples. For I imagine any one will easily grant that 
it would be impertinent to suppose the ideas of 
colours innate in a creature to whom God hath given 
sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes 
from external objects : and no less unreasonable 
would it be to attribute several truths to the impres- 
sions of nature and innate characters, when we may 



' Locke, Essay, Book I, Chapter ii, 1-9; Chapter iii. 



Epistemology 535 

observe in ourselves faculties fit to attain as easy 
and certain knowledge of them, as if they were origi- 
nally imprinted on the mind. 

But because a man is not permitted without cen- 
sure to follow his own thoughts in the search of 
truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the 
common road, I shall set down the reasons that made 
me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excuse 
for my mistake, if I be in one ; which I leave to be 
considered by those who, with me, dispose them- 
selves to embrace truth wherever they find it. 

2. General Assent the great Argimient. — There 
IS nothing more commonly taken for granted than 
that there are certain principles, both speculative 
and practical (for they speak of both), universally 
agreed upon by all mankind, which therefore, they 
argue, must needs be constant impressions, which 
the souls of men receive in their first beings, and 
which they bring into the world with them, as nec- 
essarily and really as they do any of their inherent 
faculties. 

3. Universal Consent proves nothing innate. — 
This argument, drawn from universal consent, has 
this misfortune in it, that if it were true in matter 
of fact, that there were certain truths wherein all 
mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if 
there can be any other way shown how men may 
come to that universal agreement in the things they 
do consent in, which I presume may be done. 

4. "What is, is," and ''it is impossible for the 
same Thing to be and not to be," not universally 
assented to. — But, which is worse, this argument 
of universal consent, which is made use of to prove 



536 Readings in Philosophy 

innate principles, seems to me a demonstration that 
there are none such ; because there are none to which 
all mankind give an universal assent. I shall begin 
with the speculative, and instance in those magnified 
principles of demonstration, "whatsoever is, is," 
and "it is impossible for the same thing to be and not 
to be;" which, of all others, I think have the most 
allowed title to innate. These have so settled a repu- 
tation of maxims universally received, that it will no 
doubt be thought strange if any one should seem to 
question it. But yet I take liberty to say, that these 
propositions are so far from having an universal 
assent, that there are a great part of mankind to 
whom they are not so much as known. 

5. Not on the Mind naturally imprinted, because 
not knoivn to Children, Idiots, etc. — For, first, it is 
evident that all children and idiots have not the least 
apprehension or thought of them ; and the want of 
that is enough to destroy that universal assent which 
must needs be the necessary concomitant of all in- 
nate truths : it seeming to me near a contradiction 
to say that there are truths imprinted on the soul 
which it perceives or understands not; imprinting, 
if it signify anything, being nothing else but the 
making certain truths to be perceived. For to im- 
print anything on the mind without the mind's per- 
ceiving it, seems to me hardly intelligible. If there- 
fore children and idiots have souls, have minds, with 
those impressions upon them, they must unavoidably 
perceive them, and necessarily know and assent to 
these truths ; which since they do not, it is evident 
that there are no such impressions. For if they are 
not notions naturally imprinted, how can they be 



Epistemology 537 

innate? and if they are notions imprinted, how can 
they be unknown? To say a notion is imprinted 
on the mind, and yet at the same time to say that the 
mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, 
is to make this impression nothing. No proposition 
can be said to be in the mind which it never yet 
knew, which it was never yet conscious of. For if 
any one may, then, by the same reason, all propo- 
sitions that are true, and the mind is capable of ever 
assenting to, may be said to be in the mind, and to 
be imprinted : since, if any one can be said to be in 
the mind, which it never yet knew, it must be only 
because it is capable of knowing it, and so the mind 
is of all truths it ever shall know. Nay, thus truths 
may be imprinted on the mind which it never did nor 
ever shall know ; for a man may live long, and die 
at last in ignorance of many truths which his mind 
was capable of knowing, and that with certainty. 
So that if the capacity of knowing be the natural im- 
pression contended for, all the truths a man ever 
ccmes to know will, by this account, be every one 
of them innate; and this great point will amount 
to no more, but only to a very improper way of 
speaking; which, whilst it pretends to assert the con- 
trary, says nothing different from those who deny 
innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied 
that the mind was capable of knowing several truths. 
The capacity, they say, is innate, the knowledge 
acquired. But then to what end such contest for 
certain innate maxims ? If truths can be imprinted 
on the understanding without being* perceived, I can 
see no difference there can be between any truths 
the mind is capable of knowing in respect of their 



538 Readiyigs in Philosophy 

original : they must all be innate or all adventitious ; 
in vain shall a man go about to distinguish them. 
He therefore that talks of innate notions in the 
understanding, cannot (if he intend thereby any 
distinct sort of truths) mean such truths to be in 
the understanding as it never perceived, and is yet 
wholly ignorant of. For if these words (to be in 
the understanding) have any propriety, they signify 
to be understood ; so that to be in the understanding 
and not to be understood, to be in the mind and 
never to be perceived, is all one as to say anything 
is and is not in the mind or understanding. If there- 
fore these two propositions, "Whatsoever is, is," 
and "it is impossible for the same thing to be and 
not to be," are by nature imprinted, children cannot* 
be ignorant of them ; infants, and all that have souls, 
must necessarily have them in their understandings, 
know the truth of them, and assent to it. 

6. That Men knoiv them tuhen they come to the 
Use of Reason, ansivered. — To avoid this, it is 
usually answered, that all men know and assent to 
them, when they come to the use of reason, and this 
is enough to prove them innate. I answer : — 

7. Doubtful expressions, that have scarce any 
signification, go for clear reasons to those who, being 
prepossessed, take not the pains to examine even 
what they themselves say. For, to apply this answer 
with any tolerable sense to our present purpose, it 
must signify one of these two things ; either that 
as soon as men come to the use of reason these sup- 
posed native inscriptions come to be known and 
observed by them, or else that the use and exercise 
of men's reason assists them in the discovery of 



Epistemology 539 

these principles, and certainly makes them known to 
them. 

8. // Reason discovered them, that ivoidd fiot 
2)rove them innate. — If they mean, that by the use 
of reason men may discover these principles, and 
that this is sufficient to prove them innate; their 
way of arguing will stand thus, viz., that whatever 
truths reason can certainly discover to us, and make 
us firmly assent to, those are all naturally imprinted 
oh the mind; since that universal assent, which is 
made the mark of them, amounts to no more but 
this, that by the use of reason we are capable to 
come to a certain knowledge of and assent to them ; 
and, by this means, there will be no difference be- 
tween the maxims of the mathematicians, and 
theorems they deduce from them : all must be equally 
allowed innate, they being all discoveries made by 
the use of reason, and truths that a rational crea- 
ture may certainly come to know, if he apply his 
thoughts rightly that way. 

9. It is false that Reason discovers them. — But 
how can these men think the use of reason necessary 
to discover principles that are supposed innate, when 
reason (if we may believe them) is nothing else but 
the faculty of deducing unknown truths from prin- 
ciples or propositions that are already known? That 
certainly can never be thought innate which we have 
need of reason to discover; unless, as I have said, 
we will have all the certain truths that reason ever 
teaches us, to be innate. We may as well think the 
use of reason necessary to make our eyes discover 
visible objects, as that there should be need of rea- 
son, or the exercise thereof, to make the understand- 



540 Readings in Philosophy 

ing see what is originally engraven on it, and cannot 
be in the understanding before it be perceived by it. 
So that to make reason discover those truths thus 
imprinted, is to say that the use of reason discovers 
to a man what he knew before: and if men have 
those innate impressed truths originally, and before 
the use of reason, and yet are always ignorant of 
them till they come to the use of reason, it is in 
effect to say, that men know and know them not at 
the same time. 

CHAPTER III. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES 

1, No moral Princi'ples so clear and so generally 
received as the forementioned speculative Maxims. 
— If those speculative maxims, whereof we dis- 
coursed in the foregoing chapter, have not an actual 
universal assent from all mankind, as we there 
proved, it is much more visible concerning practical 
principles, that they come short of an universal re- 
ception ; and I think it will be hard to instance any 
one moral rule which can pretend to so general and 
ready an assent as, "What is, is ;" or to be so mani- 
fest a truth as this, "That it is impossible for the 
same thing to be and not to be," Whereby it is evi- 
dent that they are further removed from a title to 
be innate ; and the doubt of their being native im- 
pressions on the mind is stronger against those 
moral principles than the other. Not that it brings 
their truth at all in question. They are equally true, 
though not equally evident. Those speculative 
maxims carry their own evidence with them; but 
moral principles require reasoning and discourse, 
and some exercise of the mind, to discover the cer- 



Epistemology 541 

tainty of their truth. They lie not open as natural 
characters engraven on the mind; which, if any 
such were, they must needs be visible by themselves, 
and by their own light be certain and known to 
everybody. But this is no derogation to their truth 
and certainty, no more than it is to the truth or 
certainty of the three angles of a triangle being 
equal to two right ones ; because it is not so evident 
as "the whole is bigger than a part," nor so apt to 
be assented to at first hearing. It may sufSce that 
these moral rules are capable of demonstration; 
and therefore it is our own fault if we come not to 
a certain knowledge of them. But the ignorance 
wherein many men are of them, and the slowness 
of assent wherewith others receive them, are mani- 
fest proofs that they are not innate, and such as offer 
themselves to their view without searching. 

2. Faith and Justice not oivned as Principles by 
all Men. — Whether there be any such moral prin- 
ciples wherein all men do agree, I appeal to any who 
have been but moderately conversant in the history 
of mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke 
of their own chimneys. Where is that practical 
truth that is universally received without doubt or 
question, as it must be if innate? Justice, and keep- 
ing of contracts, is that which most men seem to 
agree in. This is a principle which is thought to 
extend itself to the dens of thieves, and the confed- 
eracies of the greatest villains; and they who 
have gone furthest towards the putting off of hu- 
manity itself, keep faith and rules of justice one with 
another. I grant that outlaws themselves do this 
one amongst another; but it is without receiving 



542 'Readings in Philosophy 

these as the innate laws of nature. They practice 
them as rules of convenience within their own com- 
munities : but it is impossible to conceive that he 
embraces justice as a practical principle, who acts 
fairly with his fellow-highwayman, and at the same 
time plunders or kills the next honest man he meets 
with. Justice and truth are the common ties of 
society; and therefore even outlaws and robbers, 
who break with all the world besides, must keep 
faith and rules of equity amongst themselves, or else 
they cannot hold together. But will any one say, 
that those that live by fraud or rapine have innate 
principles of truth and justice which they allow and 
assent to? 

C- The a Priori Element in Knowledge. 

Kant contends, in opposition to the empirical 
school that there is an element in experience and 
knowledge whose origin can not be traced to ex- 
perience. Its existence is presupposed by expe- 
rience : 

There^ can be no doubt whatever that all our 
knowledge begins with experience. By what means 
should the faculty of knowledge be aroused to ac- 
tivity but by objects, which, acting upon our senses, 
partly of themselves produce ideas in us, and partly 
set our understanding at work to compare these 
ideas with one another, and, by combining or sepa- 
rating them, to convert the raw material of our 
sensible impressions into that knowledge of objects 



^ Kant, Critique of Pure Reason; Watson, Op. Cit., pages 
7-10. 



Epistemology 548 

which is called experience? In the order of time, 
therefore, we have no knowledge prior to experience, 
and with experience all our knowledge begins. 

But, although all our knowledge begins ivith ex- 
perience, it by no means follows that it all originates 
fro7n experience. For it may well be that experience 
is itself made up of two elements, one received 
through impressions of sense, and the other supplied 
from itself by our faculty of knowledge on occasion 
of those impressions. If that be so, it may take 
long practice before our attention is drawn to the 
element added by the mind, and we learn to distin- 
guish and separate it from the material to which it 
IS applied. 

It is, therefore, a question which cannot be lightly 
put aside, but can be answered only after careful 
investigation, whether there is any knowledge that 
IS independent of experience, and even of all impres- 
sions of sense. Such knowledge is said to be a priori, 
to distinguish it from empirical knowledge, which 
has its sources a posteriori, or in experience. 

The term a priori must, however, be defined more 
precisely, in order that the full meaning of our ques- 
tion may be understood. We say of a man who 
undermines the foundations of his house, that he 
might have known a priori that it would fall ; by 
which we mean, that he might have known it would 
fall, without waiting for the event to take place in 
^is experience. But he could not know it com- 
pletely a priori: for it is only from experience that 
he could learn that bodies are heavy, and must fall 
by their own weight when there is nothing to sup- 
port them. 



544 Readings in Philosophy 

By a pr-iori knowledge we shall, therefore, in what 
follows understand, not such knowledge as is inde- 
pendent of this or that experience, but such as is 
absolutely independent of all experience. Opposed 
to it is empirical knowledge, or that which is pos- 
sible only a posteriori, that is, by experience. A 
prio7'i knowledge is pure, when it is unmixed with 
anything empirical. The proposition, for instance, 
that each change has its own cause is a priori, but it 
is not pure, because change is an idea that can be 
derived only from experience. 

Scie7ice and Common Sense contain a priori 
Knowledge 

Evidently what we need is a criterion by which 
to distinguish with certainty between pure and em- 
pirical knowledge. Now, experience can tell us 
that a thing is so and so, but not that it cannot be 
otherwise. Firstly, then, if we find a proposition 
that, in being thought, is thought as necessary, it is 
an a priori judgment; and if, further, it is not de- 
rived from any proposition except which is itself nec- 
essary, it is absolutely a priori. Secondly, experience 
never bestows on its judgments true or strict uni- 
versality, but only the assumed or comparative uni- 
versality of induction ; so that, properly speaking, it 
merely says, that so far as our observation has gone, 
there is no exception to this or that rule. If, there- 
fore, a judgment is thought with strict universality, 
so that there can be no possible exception to it, it 
is not derived from experience, but is absolutely a 
prioH. Necessity and strict universality are, there- 



Epistemology 545 

fore, sure criteria of a priori knowledge, and are 
also inseparably connected with each other. 

Now, it is easy to show that in human knowledge 
there actually are judgments, that in the strictest 
sense are universal, and therefore pure a priori. 
If an example from the sciences is desired, we have 
but to think of any proposition in mathematics ; if 
an instance from common sense is preferred, it is 
enough to cite the proposition, that there can be 
no change without a eaijise. To take the latter case, 
the very idea of cause so manifestly implies the idea 
of necessary connection with an effect, that it would 
be completely lost, were we to derive it, with Hume, 
from the repeated association of one event with 
another that precedes it, and were we to reduce it 
to the subjective necessity arising from the habit of 
passing from one idea to another. Even without^ 
appealing to such examples to show that as a matter 
of fact there are in our knowledge pure a pinion 
principles, we might prove a priori that without 
such principles there could be no experience what- 
ever. For, whence could experience derive the cer- 
tainty it has, if all the rules that it follows were 
merely empirical and therefore contingent? Surely 
such rules could not be dignified with the name of 
first principles. 

There^ are two ultimate sources from which 
knowledge comes to us : either we receive ideas in 
the form of impressions, or, by our spontaneous 
faculty of conception, we know an object by means 



' Ibid., pages 40, 41. 



546 Readings in Philosophy 

oP those ideas. In the former case, the object is 
given to us ; in the latter case, it is thought in rela- 
tion to the impressions that arise in our conscious- 
ness. Perception and conception, therefore, are the 
two elements that enter into all our knowledge. To 
every conception some form of perception corre- 
sponds, and no perception yields knowledge without 
conception. Both may be either pure or empirical; 
empirical, if sensation, which occurs only in the ac- 
tual presence of an object, is implied; pure, if there 
is no intermixture of sensation. We may call sensa- 
tion the matter of sensuous knowledge. Hence pure 
perception contains only the form under which a 
something is perceived, and pure conception the 
form in which an object in general is thought. Pure 
perceptions or pure conceptions alone are possible a 
priori, while empirical perceptions' or empirical con- 
ceptions are possible only a j)osteriori. 

If sensibility is the receptivity of the mind in the 
actual apprehension of some impression, under- 
standing is the spontaneity of knowledge, or the 
faculty that of itself produces ideas. We are so 
constituted that our perceptioyi always is sensuous ; 
or it shows merely the manner in which we are af- 
fected by objects. But, we have also understand- 
ing, or the faculty of thinking the object of sensuous 
perception. Neither of these is to be regarded as 
superior to the other. Without sensibility no object 
would be given to us, without understanding none 
would be thought. Thoughts without content are 
empty, perceptions without conceptions are blind. 
It is therefore just as necessary to make our con- 
ceptions sensuous, that is, to add the object to them 



Epistemology 547 

in perceptions, as it is to make our perceptions in- 
telligible, that is, to bring them under conceptions. 
Neither of these faculties or capacities can do the 
work of the other. Understanding can perceive 
nothing, the senses can think nothing. Knowledge 
arises only from their united action. But this is no 
reason for confusing the function of either with 
that of the other; it is rather a strong reason for 
carefully separating and distinguishing the one from 
the other. 

D. Objective Idealism. 

Royce is one of the most influential of the recent 
advocates of Objective Idealism. The Woi'ld and 
the Individual is a typical expression of his own 
philosophy and of the Idealistic school of recent 
years : 

Idea' and Reality must, then, possess elements 
that are common to both of them. On the other 
hand, as we saw, this mere community is wholly 
inadequate to the tasks of defining what makes the 
object belong, as object, to a given idea. For, if 
you view any idea and its supposed object, merely 
as one might be imagined viewing them from with- 
out, it is wholly impossible to determine what degree 
of correspondence between them is required either 
to make the reality that precise object sought by the 
idea, or to render the idea the true representative 
of the object to which it is said to refer. A true 



^ Royce, Josiah ; The World and The Individual, Vol. I, 
pages 350-359; published by the Macmillan Company, 1901; 
reprinted by permission of the publishers, and of Mrs. Royce. 



548 Readings in Philosoi^hy 

idea, as Spinoza said, must indeed resemble its 
ideate. But on the other hand, a mere resemblance 
of idea and ideate is not enough. Nor does the ab- 
sence of any specific degree of resemblance neces- 
sarily involve an error. It is intended resemblance 
which counts in estimating the truth of ideas. If 
in fact you suppose, as an ideal case, two human 
beings, say' twins, absolutely to resemble each other, 
not only in body, but in experience and in thought, 
so that every idea which one of these beings at any 
moment had was precisely duplicated by a thought 
which at the same instant, and in the same fashion, 
arose in the other being's life, — if, I say, you sup- 
pose this perfect resemblance in the twin minds, you 
could still, without inconsistency, suppose these 
twins separated from infancy, living apart, although 
of course under perfectly similar physical condi- 
tions, and in our human sense what we men call 
absolute strangers to each other, so that neither of 
them, viewed merely as this human being, ever 
consciously thought of the other, or conceived of the 
other's existence. In that case, the mere resem- 
blance would not so far constitute the one of these 
twin minds the object of which the other mind 
thought, or the being concerning whom the ideas of 
the other were true. 

The resemblance of idea and object, viewed as a 
mere fact for an external observer, is, therefore, 
never by itself enough to constitute the truth of the 
idea. Nor is the absence of any externally prede- 
termined resemblances, such as you from without 
may choose to demand of the idea, enough to con- 
stitute any specific sort of error. Moreover, when 



Epistemology 549 

you merely assert that in the world of Being there is 
to be found an object which resembles your idea, you 
have so far only mentioned two beings, namely, your 
idea and its object, and have asserted their resem- 
blance. But you have not yet in the least defined 
wherein the Being of either of these objects con- 
sists. This, then, is the outcome so long as you 
view idea and object as sundered facts agreeing or 
disagreeing with each other. Neither truth nor 
Being is thus to be defined. The result so far is 
conclusive against the adequacy, not only of Realism, 
and of Mysticism, but also, as we saw, of even the 
Third Conception of Being. 

For if one asserts, as his second account of the 
nature of Being, that certain ideas of possibilities 
of experience are valid, he is so far left with a world 
of objects upon his hands whose only character, so 
far as he yet defines the Being of these objects, is 
that these objects are in agreement with his ideas. 
Such definition of Being constituted the whole out- 
come of the Third Conception, The mathemati- 
cian's ideas, as present to himself, take the form 
of observed symbols and diagrams. These, so far as 
they are observed, are contents of experience ful- 
filling purpose. They so far conform to our defini- 
tion of what constitutes an idea, for they have in- 
ternal meaning. But the existent objects concern- 
ing which the mathematician endeavors to teach us, 
are, by hypothesis, not the symbols, and not the 
diagrams, but valid truths to which these diagrams 
and symbols — these mathematician's ideas — cor- 
respond. The existences of the mathematician's 
realm are other than his mere finite ideas. Now 

36 



550 Readings in Philosophy 

that such objects have their place in reality, I my- 
self thoroughly believe. But I point out that their 
reality, the true Being of these objects, is in no v^ise 
defined when you merely speak of the ideas as noth- 
ing but valid, because the assertion of validity is 
so far merely the assertion of a correspondence be- 
tween a presupposed idea and its assumed object, 
without any account as yet either of the object, or 
of the truth of the idea. And bare correspondence, 
the mere possession of common characters in idea 
and in object not only fails to define, but, as we 
now see, can never lead us to define, the Being of 
either idea or object, and in no sense shows or ex- 
plains to us the relation whereby the idea means, 
selects, and is in just this way true of just this one 
object. 

The relation of correspondence between idea and 
object is, therefore, wholly subordinate to another 
and far deeper relation ; and so to say, "My idea has 
reference to a real Being," is to say, "My idea im- 
perfectly expresses, in my present consciousness, an 
intention, a meaning, a purpose; and just this spe- 
cific meaning is carried out, is fulfilled, is expressed, 
by my object." For correspondence to its object, 
and intentional selection of both the object and the 
sort of correspondence, constitute the two possible 
relations of idea and object. If the bare corre- 
spondence determines neither Being nor truth, the 
intention must determine both Being and truth. In 
other words, the Being to whom any idea refers is 
simply the will of the idea more determinately, and 
also more completely, expressed. Once admit this 
definition of the nature of Being, and you will ac- 



Epistemology 551 

complish the end which all the various prior defini- 
tions of Being actually sought. 

For, first, with the realist, you will now assert 
that the object is not only Other than the finite idea, 
but is something that is authoritative over against 
the finite idea. The realist gave an abstract expres- 
sion to this authority of the object when he said that 
the object is independent of the idea. The abstrac- 
tion was false; but it was already a suggestion of 
the true meaning. The finite idea does seek its own 
Other, It consciously means this Other. And it 
can seek only what it consciously means to seek. But 
it consciously means to seek precisely that determi- 
nation of its own will to singleness and finality of 
expression which shall leave it no Other yet beyond, 
and still to seek. To its own plan, to its own not 
here fully determined purpose,' the idea at this in- 
stant must needs submit. Its very present con- 
scious will is its submission. Y«et the idea submits 
to no external meaning that is not the development 
of its own internal meaning. Moreover, the finite 
idea is a merely general idea. But what it means, 
its object, is an Individual. So you will all agree 
with the realist that whether or no the idea just 
now embodies its own object of search as nearly 
with present truth as the narrow limits of our con- 
sciousness permit, it must still seek other fulfilment 
than is now present, and must submissively accept 
this fulfilment as its own authoritative truth. But 
you will reject the realistic isolation of the idea 
from the object, and of the object from the idea. 

If one attempts in some way to modify his Realism 
by declaring the object not wholly, but only par- 



552 Readings in Philosophy 

tially, independent of the ideas which refer to it, 
still such a modified realist would only the more 
have to face, as we ourselves have been trying to 
face, the problem as to how the idea and its object 
are positively related. And if idea and object are 
left in the end in any way as two separate existent 
facts, isolated from each other, then one can find 
no further relation between the isolated idea and 
object except the relation of greater or less corre- 
spondence, and by this relation of mere external 
correspondence, taken alone, one would be able to 
define neither the Being of any object, nor the truth 
of any idea. Or, in other words, a world where 
ideas and objects merely correspond, as isolated 
facts, and where no other and deeper relation links 
knowledge and Being, is a world where there is so 
far neither any knowledge nor any Being at all. 

But secondly, if you accept our Fourth Conception, 
you will also agree with Mysticism in so far as, 
identifying Being with fulfilment of purpose, the 
mystic says, of the object of any of your ideas : 
That art thou. For the mystic means this asser- 
tion not of the imperfect self of the merely finite 
idea. He does not mean that this passing thrill 
of longing is already fully identical with the Other 
that this very longing seeks. For the mystic, as 
for the realist, Being is indeed something Other 
than our mere search for Being. The mystical 
identification of the world and the Self is meant to 
be true of the completed, of the fulfilled and final, or 
Absolute Self. Now, starting with any idea, we 
shall henceforth say to this idea, regarding its own 
object, precisely what the mystic says of the Self 



Epistemology 553 

and the World: That art thou. Namely, the ob- 
ject is for us simply the completely embodied will 
of the idea. It is nothing else. But we shall hence- 
forth differ from the mystic precisely at the point 
where the mystic takes refuge in mere negations. 
We, too, of course, shall also confess our finite igno- 
rance. But the Netl, Neti of Yajnavalkya, the 
nescio, nescio of the mediaeval mystic, will express 
for us, not the essential nature of true Being, as the 
mystic declared, but merely the present inadequacy 
of your passing idea to its own present and con- 
scious purpose, — a purpose known precisely so far 
as it is embodied at this instant. We shall say if we 
follow to its conclusion this our Fourth Conception, 
"We know in part, and we prophesy in part; but 
when the object meant, namely, precisely when that 
which is perfect is truly said to be, it fulfils, and in 
so far by supplementing but not otherwise, it takes 
away that which is in part." Our final object, the 
uj'bs Sion unlca, mansio mystica, is for us, as for 
the mystic, the unique Being wherein this our finite 
will is fulfilled. But this one object, meant, this 
fulfilment of our will, is not merely "founded in 
heaven". Its will is done on earth, not yet in this 
temporal instant wholly as it is in heaven, but is 
still really done, in these ideas that already con- 
sciously attain a fragment of their own meaning. 
They are ideas precisely because they do this. The 
sadness of the mystical longing is now for us lighted 
by glimpses of the genuine and eternally present 
truth of the one real world. It is not merely in the 
mystic trance, but in every rational idea, in so far 
as it is already a partially embodied purpose, that 



554 Readings in Philosophy 

we now shall in our own way and measure come 
upon that which is, and catch the deep pulsations 
of the world. Our instant is not yet the whole of 
eternity; but the eternal light, the lux eterna, 
shineth in our every reasonable moment, and 
lighteth every idea that cometh into the world. 

And, thirdly, if you follow our Fourth Concep- 
tion, you will now agree with thei critical rationalist 
when he asserts that Being essentially involves what 
gives the validity to ideas. But you will have dis- 
covered what conditions are necessary to constitute 
validity. The valid finite idea is first, for whoever 
possess it, an observed and empirical fulfilment of 
purpose. But this fulfilment is also observed in this 
instant as something incomplete. Therefore it is 
that a finite idea seeks beyond itself for its own 
validity. And it is perfectly true to say that if 
the idea is valid, certain further experience of the 
fulfilment of the idea is possible. Leave this fur- 
ther experience, however, as something merely pos- 
sible, and your definition of Being would so far 
remain fast iDOund in its own fatal circle. Is the 
idea valid or not? If it is valid, then, by hypothe- 
sis, further experience that would confirm the idea 
is possible. This further experience, like any ob- 
ject existent in the mathematician's realm, is both 
known to be something Other than the idea that 
refers to it, and is also viewed as a fact precisely 
corresponding to what the idea means to define. 
Now so long as you call this Other, this possible ex- 
perience, merely such a bare possibility, you define, 
as we have said, only those characters of this object 
which the object has in common with your merely 



Epistemology 555 

present idea of the object. The object is so far 
defined as an experience, and as having this or that 
type or form. That is what you say when you talk 
of any being- in Kant's realm of Mogliche Erfahrung, 
or of any mathematical fact. All that is thus de- 
fined about the object is its mere ivhat, the char- 
acters that it shares with your present ideas and 
experiences at the moment when you define it. 
What therefore you have not thus defined is pre- 
cisely the Being of the Object as Other than the very 
finite idea which is to regard it as an Other. If 
you have once observed this defect of any assertion 
of a bare possibility of experience, you will have 
seen why the mere definition of universal types 
can never reach the expression of the whole nature 
of real Beings, and why, for that very reason, the 
realm of Validity is nothing unless it is more than 
merely valid, nothing too unless it takes an indi- 
vidual form as an unique fulfilment of purpose in 
a completed life. 

But all the three former conceptions are now to be 
brought into synthesis in this Fourth Conception. 
What is, is authoritative over against finite ideas, 
as Realism asserted, is one with the true meaning of 
the idea, as Mysticism insisted, and is valid as 
Critical Rationalism demanded. What is, presents 
the fulfilment of the whole purpose of the very idea 
that now seeks this Being. And when I announce 
this as our Fourth Conception of Being, I do not 
mean to be understood as asserting a mere validity, 
but as reporting facts. I do not any longer merely 
say, as we said at the outset of our discussion, Be- 
ing is that which, if present, would end your finite 



556 Readings in Philosophy 

search, would answer your doubts, would fulfil your 
purpose. All that was the language of validity. 
It was a mere preliminary. Since validity has no 
meaning unless its general types of truth take on 
individual form, and unless the ivhat turns into the 
that, I now say, without any reserve, What is does 
in itself fulfil your meaning, does express, in the 
completest logically possible measure, the accom- 
plishment and embodiment of the very will now 
fragmentarily embodied in your finite ideas. And 
I say, that this embodiment means in itself precisely 
what your present embodiment of purpose in your 
rational experience means, just in so far as your 
purposes are not mere fragments, but are also, even 
in their transiency, results known as, relatively 
speaking, won, as possessed, as accomplished. The 
accomplishment of your purpose now means that 
your experience is viewed by you as the present and 
conscious expression of a plan. Well, what is, pre- 
cisely in so far as it is, is in the same way a whole 
experience finally expressing and consciously ful- 
filling a plan. And the Being of the real object of 
which you now think means a life that expresses the 
fulfilment of just your present plan, in the greatest 
measure in which your plan itself is logically capable 
of fulfilment. 



CHAPTER XXV 

■^ THE CRITERIA OF TRUTH 

A. The Copy Theory. 

This theory which has been strongly criticised by 
the Pragmatists has its classic expression in the 
following passage from Locke's Essay : 

OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 

1. Knowledge,^ as has been said, lying in the 
perception of the agreement or disagreement of any 
of our ideas, it follows from .hence that, 

1. No further than ive have Ideas. — First, We 
'can have knowledge no further than we have ideas. 

2. II. No further than we can joerceive their 
Agreement or Disagreement. — Secondly, That we 
have no knowledge further than we can have per- 
ception of their agreement or disagreement. Which 
perception being: 1. Either by intuition, or the im- 
mediate comparing any two ideas ; or, 2. By reason, 
examining the agreement or disagreement of two 
ideas, by the intervention of some others ; or, 3. By 
sensation, perceiving the existence of particular 
things ; hence it also follows : 

3. III. Intuitive Knotvledge extends itself not 
to all the Relations of all our Ideas. — Thirdly, That 
we cannot have an intuitive knowledge that shall 



' Locke, Essay, Book IV, Ch. iii. 
(557) 



558 Readings in Philosojjhy 

extend itself to all our ideas, and all that we would 
know about them; because we cannot examine and 
perceive all the relations they have one to another by 
juxtaposition, or an immediate comparison one with 
another. Thus, having the ideas of an obtuse and 
an acute-angled triangle, both drawn from equal 
bases, and between parallels, I can, by intuitive 
knowledge, perceive the one not to be the other, but 
cannot that way know whether they be equal or no; 
because their agreement or disagreement in equality 
can never be perceived by an immediate comparing 
them: the difference of figure makes their parts in- 
capable of an exact immediate application, and 
therefore there is need of some intervening qualities 
to measure them by, which is demonstration or ra- 
tional knowledge. 

4. IV. Nor demonstrative K no iv I e dg e, — 
Fourthly, It follows, also, from what is above ob- 
served, that our rational knowledge cannot reach to 
the whole extent of our ideas; because between two 
different ideas we would examine, we cannot always 
find such mediums as we can connect one to another 
with an intuitive knowledge in all the parts of the 
deduction ; and wherever that fails, we come short 
of knowledge and demonstration. 

5. V. Sensitive Knowledge narroiuer than 
either. — Fifthly, Sensitive knowledge, reaching no 
further than the existence of things actually present 
to our :senses, is yet much narrower than either of 
the former. 

6. VI. Our Knotvledge, therefore, narroiver 
than our Ideas. — From all which it is evident, that 
the extent of our knowledge comes not only short of 



The Criteria of Truth 559 

the reality of things, but even of the extent of our 
own ideas. Though our knowledge be limited to 
our ideas, and cannot exceed them either in extent 
or perfection; and though these be very narrow 
bounds, in respect of the extent of all being, and far 
short of what we may justly imagine to be in some 
even created understandings, not tied down to the 
dull and narrow information that is to be received 
from some few, and not very acute ways of percep- 
tion, such as are our senses ; yet it would be well with 
us if our knowledge were but as large as our ideas, 
and there were not many doubts and inquiries con- 
cerning the ideas we have, whereof we are not, nor 
I believe ever shall be in this world, resolved. 
Nevertheless, I do not question but that human 
knowledge, under the present circumstances of our 
beings and constitutions, may be carried much far- 
ther than it hitherto has been, if men would sin- 
cerely, and with freedom of mind, employ all that 
industry and labour of thought in improving the 
means of discovering truth, which they do for the 
colouring or support of falsehood, to maintain a 
system, interest, or party they are once engaged in. 

7. Hoic far our Knoiuledge reaches. — The af- 
firmations or negations we make concerning the 
ideas we have, may, as I have before intimated in 
general, be reduced to these four sorts, viz., identity, 
co-existence, relation, and real existence. I shall 
examine how far our knowledge extends in each of 
these: — 

8. I. Our Knoiuledge of Identity and Diversity, 
as far as our Ideas. — First, as to identity and di- 



560 Readings in Philosophy 

versity, in this way of agreement or disagreement 
of ideas, our intuitive knowledge is as far extended 
as our ideas themselves; and there can be no idea 
in the mind, which it does not presently, by an in- 
tuitive knowledge, perceive to be what it is, and to 
be different from any other, 

9. 11. Of Co-existence, a very little Way. — 
Secondly, as to the second sort, which is the agree- 
ment or disagreement of our ideas in co-existence, 
in this our knowledge is very short, though in this 
consists the greatest and most material part of our 
knowledge concerning substances. For our ideas of 
the species of substances being, as I have showed, 
nothing but certain collections of simple ideas united 
in one subject, and so co-existing together; — v. g., 
our idea of flame is a body hot, luminous, and mov- 
ing upward; of gold, a body heavy to a certain de- 
gree, yellow, malleable, and fusible; these, or some 
such complex ideas as these, in men's minds, do these 
two names of the difi'erent substances, flame and 
gold, stand for. When we would know any thing 
further concerning these, or any other sort of sub- 
stances, what do we inquire, but what other qualities 
or powers these substances have or have not? 
Which is nothing else but to know what other simple 
ideas do or do not co-exist with those that make up 
that complex idea. . . . 

18. III. Of other Relations it is not easy to say 
how far. — ■ Thirdly, as to the third sort of our 
knowledge, viz., the agreement or disagreement of 
any of our ideas in any other relation : this, as it is 
the largest field of our knowledge, so it is hard to 
determine how far it may extend; because the ad- 



The Criteria of Truth 561 

vances that are made in this part of knowledge 
depending on our sagacity in finding intermediate 
ideas, that may show the relations and habitudes 
of ideas, whose co-existence is not considered, it is 
a hard matter to tell when we are at an end of such 
discoveries ; and when reason has all the helps it is 
capable of, for the finding of proofs, or examining 
the agreement or disagreement of remote ideas. 
They that are ignorant of algebra, cannot imagine 
the wonders in this kind to be done by it : and what 
further improvements and helps, advantageous to 
other parts of knowledge, the sagacious mind of 
man may yet find out, it is not easy to determine. 
This at least I believe, that the ideas of quantity are 
not those alone that are capable of demonstration 
and knowledge; and that other, and perhaps more 
useful parts of contemplation would afford us cer- 
tainty, if vices, passions, and domineering interest 
did not oppose or menace such endeavours. . . . 
21, Fourthly. Of real Existence : we have an in- 
tidtive Knotvledge of our otvn — dew.onst7^ative of 
God's, — sensitive, of some few other things. — As 
to the fourth sort of our knowledge, viz., of the real 
actual existence of things, we have an intuitive 
knowledge of our own existence, and a demonstrative 
knowledge of the existence of a God ; of the existence 
of anything else, we have no other but a sensitive 
knowledge, which extends not beyond the objects 
present to our senses. 

CHAPTER IV. OF THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE 

1. Objection. Knowledge placed in Ideas may 
he all hare Vision. — I doubt not but my reader, by 



562 Readings in Philosophy 

this time, may be apt to think that I have been 
all this while only building a castle in the air; and 
be ready to say to me, "To what purpose all this stir? 
Knowledge, say you, is only the perception of the 
agreement or disagreement of our own ideas; but 
who knows what those ideas may be? Is there any 
thing so extravagant as the imaginations of men's 
brains? Where is the head that has no chimeras 
in it? Or if there be a sober and a wise man, what 
difference will there be, by your rules, between his 
knowledge and that of the most extravagant fancy 
in the world ? They both have their ideas, and per- 
ceive their agreement and disagreement one with 
another. If there be any difference between them, 
the advantage will be on the warm-headed man's side, 
as having the more ideas, and the more lively; and 
so, by your rules, he will be the more knowing. If 
it be true, that all knowledge lies only in the percep- 
tion of the agreement or disagreement of our own 
ideas, the visions of an enthusiast and the reason- 
ings of a sober man will be equally certain. It is 
no matter how things are ; so a man observe but the 
agreement of his own imaginations, and talk con- 
formably, it is all truth, all certainty. Such castles 
in the air will be as strongholds of truth, as the 
demonstrations of Euclid. That an harpy is not 
fa centaur is by this way as certain knowledge, and 
as much a truth, as that a square is not a circle. 

"But of what use is all this fine knowledge of 
men's own imaginations, to a man that inquires 
after the reality of things? It matters not what 
men's fancies are, it is the knowledge of things that 
is only to be prized; it is this alone gives a value 



The Criteria of Truth 563 

to our reasonings, and preference to one man's 
knowledge over another's, that it is of things as they 
really are, and not of dreams and fancies." 

2. Ansiver. Not so, where Ideas agree ivith 
Things. — To which I answer, that if our knowledge 
of our ideas terminate in them, and reach no fur- 
ther, where there is something further in.tended, 
our most serious thoughts will be of little more use 
than the reveries of a crazy brain; and the truths 
built thereon of no more weight than the discourses 
of a man, who sees things clearly in a dream, and 
with great assurance utters them. But I hope, be- 
fore I have done, to make it evident that this way of 
certainty, by the knowledge of our own ideas, goes a 
little further than bare imagination; and I believe 
it will appear that all the certainty of general truths 
a man has lies in nothing else. 

3. It is evident the mind knows not things im- 
mediately, but only by the intervention of the ideas 
it has of them. Our knowledge therefore is real 
only so far as there is a conformity between our 
ideas and the reality of things. But what shall be 
here the criterion? How shall the mind, when it 
perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they 
agree with things themselves ? This, though it seems 
not to want difficulty, yet I think there be two sorts 
of ideas that we may be assured agree with things. 

4. As, I. All simple Ideas do. — First, the first 
are simple ideas, which since the mind, as has been 
showed, can by no means make to itself, must neces- 
sarily be the product of things operating on the mind 
in a natural way, and producing therein those per- 
ceptions which by the wisdom and will of our Maker 



564 Readings in Philosophy 

they are ordained and adapted to. From whence 
it follows, that simple ideas are not fictions of our 
fancies, but the natural and regular productions of 
things without us, really operating upon us, and so 
carry with them all the conformity which is in- 
tended, or which our state requires ; for they repre- 
sent to us things under those appearances which 
they are fitted to produce in us, whereby we are 
enabled to distinguish the sorts of particular sub- 
stances, to discern the states they are in, and so to 
take them for our necessities, and apply them to our 
uses. Thus the idea of whiteness or bitterness, as 
it is in the mind, exactly answering that power 
which is in any body to produce it there, has all the 
real conformity it can or ought to have, with things 
without us. And this conformity between our simple 
ideas and the existence of things, is suflficient for 
real knowledge. 

5. II. All complex Ideas except of Substances. 
— Secondly, all our complex ideas, except those of 
substances, being archetypes of the mind's own mak- 
ing, not intended to be the copies' of any thing, nor 
referred to the existence of any thing, as to their 
originals, ^annot want any conformity necessary to 
real knowledge. For that which is not designed to 
represent any thing but itself, can never be capable 
of a wrong representation, nor mislead us from the 
true apprehension of any thing by its dislikeness to 
it; and such, excepting those of substances, are all 
our complex ideas, which, as I have showed in an- 
other place, are combinations of ideas which the 
mind, by its free choice, puts together, without con- 
sidering any connexion they- have in nature. And 



The Criteria of Truth 565 

hence it is, that in all these sorts the ideas themselves 
are considered as the archetypes, and things no 
otherwise regarded, but as they are conformable to 
them. So that we cannot but be infallibly certain, 
that all the knowledge we attain concerning these 
ideas is real, and reaches things themselves ; be- 
cause in all our thoughts, reasonings, and discourses 
of this kind, we intend things no further than as they 
are conformable to our ideas. So that in these we 
cannot miss of a certain and undoubted reality. 

6. Hence the Reality of Mathematical Knotvl- 
edge. — I doubt not but it will be easily granted, that 
the knowledge we have of mathematical truths is 
not only certain, but real knowledge; and not the 
bare empty vision of vain, insignificant chimeras of 
the brain ; and yet, if we will consider, we shall find 
that it is only of our own ideas. The mathemati- 
cian considers the truth and properties belonging to 
a rectangle or circle, only as they are in idea in his 
own mind. For it is possible he never found either 
of them existing mathematically, i. e., precisely true, 
in his life. But yet the knowledge he has of any 
truths or properties belonging to a circle, or any 
mathematical figure, are nevertheless true and cer- 
tain, even of real things existing; because real 
things are no further concerned, nor intended to be 
meant by any such propositions, than as things 
really agree to those archetypes in his mind. Is it 
true of the idea of a triangle, that its three angles 
are equal to two right ones? It is true also of a 
triangle, wherever it really exists. Whatever other 
figure exists, that is not exactly answerable to 
that idea of a triangle in his mind, is not at all con- 

37 



566 Readings in Philosophy 

cerned in that proposition; and therefore he is cer- 
tain all his knowledge concerning such ideas is real 
knowledge; because, intending things no further 
than they agree with those his ideas, he is sure 
what he knows concerning those figures, when they 
have (barely an ideal existence in his mind, will hold 
true of them also when they have a real existence in 
matter; his consideration being barely of those 
figures which are the same, wherever or however 
they exist. 

7. And of Moral. — And hence it follows that 
moral knowledge is as capable of real certainty as 
mathematics ; for certainty being but the perception 
of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, and 
demonstration nothing but the perception of such 
agreement, by the intervention of other ideas or 
mediums; our moral ideas, as well as mathematical, 
being archetypes themselves, and so adequate and 
complete ideas, all the agreement or disagreement 
which we shall find in them will produce real knowl- 
edge, as well as in mathematical figures. . . . 

11. Ideas of Substances have thei?- Archetypes 
tuithout us. — Thirdly, there is another sort of 
complex ideas, which, being referred to archetypes 
without us, may difi'er from them, and so our knowl- 
edge about them may come short of being real. Such 
are our ideas of substances, which, consisting of a 
collection of simple ideas, supposed taken from the 
works of nature, may yet vary from them, by having 
more or different ideas united in them, than are to be 
found united in the things themselves. From whence 
it comes to pass, that they may, and often do fail 
of being exactly conformable to things themselves.* 



The Criteria of Truth 567 

12. So far as they agree with those, so far our 
Knowledge concerning them is 7'eal. — • I say, then, 
that to have ideas of substances which, by being 
conformable to things, may afford us real knowledge, 
it is not enough, as in modes, to put together such 
ideas as have no inconsistence, though they did 
never before so exist; v. g., the ideas of sacrilege or 
perjury, etc., were as real and true ideas before, as 
after the existence of any such fact. But our ideas 
of substances being supposed copies, and referred to 
archetypes without us, must still be taken from 
something that does or has existed; they must not 
consist of ideas put together at the pleasure of our 
thoughts, without any real pattern they were taken 
from, though we can perceive no inconsistence in 
such a combination. The reason whereof is, because 
we, knowing not what real constitution it is of 
substances whereon our simple ideas depend, and 
which really is the cause of the strict union, of some 
of them one with another, and the exclusion of 
others; there are very few of them that we can be 
sure are or are not inconsistent in nature, any fur- 
ther than experience and sensible observation reach. 
Herein, therefore, is founded the reality of our 
knowledge concerning substances, that all our com- 
plex ideas of them must be such, and such only, as 
are made up of such simple ones as have been dis- 
covered to co-exist in nature. And our ideas being 
thus true, though not, perhaps, very exact copies, 
are yet the subject of real (as far as we have any) 
knowledge of them; which (as has been already 
shown) will not be found to reach very far; but so 
far as it does, it will still be real knowledge. What- 



568 Readings in Philosoj^hy 

ever ideas we have, the agreement we find they have 
with others will still be knowledge. If those ideas 
be abstract, it will be general knowledge. But to 
make it real concerning substances, the ideas must 
be taken from the real existence of things. What- 
ever simple ideas have been found to co-exist in any 
substance, these we may with confidence join to- 
gether again, and so make abstract ideas of sub- 
stances. For whatever have once had an union in 
nature, may be united again. 

B. The Pragmatist Idea of Truth. ■ 
One of the best known statements of this position 
is the following of Professor James : 

Truth', as any dictionary will tell you, is a prop- 
erty of certain of our ideas. It means their 'agree- 
ment,' as falsity means their disagreement, with 
'reality'. Pragma tists and intellectualists both ac- 
cept this definition as a matter of course. They be- 
gin to quarrel only after the question is raised as to 
what may precisely be meant by the term 'agree- 
ment,' and what by the term 'reality*, when reality 
is taken as something for our ideas to agree with. 

In answering these questions the pragmatists are 
more analytic and painstaking, the intellectualists 
more offhand and irreflective. The popular notion 
is that a true idea must copy its reality. Like other 
popular views, this one follows the analogy of the 
most usual experience. Our true ideas of sensible 



'' James, William, Pragmatism, pages 198-205 ; Longmans, 
Green and Company, 1907; reprinted by permission of the 
publishers. 



The Criteria of Truth 569 

things do indeed copy them. Shut your eyes and 
think of yonder clock on the wall, and you get just 
such a true picture or copy of its dial. But your 
idea of its 'works' (unless you are a clockmaker) 
is much less of a copy, yet it passes muster, for it in 
no way clashes with the reality. Even though it 
should shrink to the mere word 'works', that word 
still serves you truly; and when you speak of the 
'time-keeping function' of the clock, or of its spring's 
'elasticity', it is hard to see exactly what your ideas 
can copy. 

You perceive that there is a problem here. Where 
our. ideas cannot copy definitely their object, what 
does agreement with that object mean? Some 
idealists seem to say that they are true whenever 
they are what God means that we ought to think 
about that object. Others hold the copy-view all 
through, and speak as if our ideas possessed truth 
just in proportion as they approach to being copies 
of the Absolute's eternal way of thinking. 

These views, you see, invite pragmatistic discus- 
sion. But the great assumption of the intellectual- 
ists is that truth means essentially an inert static 
relation. When you've got your true idea of any- 
thing, there's an end of the matter. You're in pos- 
session; you knoio; you have fulfilled your think- 
ing destiny. You are where you ought to be men- 
tally; you have obeyed your categorical imperative; 
and nothing more need follow on that climax of your 
rational destiny. Epistemologically you are in stable 
equilibrium. 

Pragmatism, on the other hand, asks its usual 
question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true", it 



570 Readings in Philosophy 

says, "what concrete difference will its being true 
make in any one's actual life? How will the truth 
be realized? What experiences will be different 
from those which would obtain if the belief were 
false ? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in 
experiential terms?" 

The moment pragmatism asks this question, it 
sees the answer: Ti'ue ideas are those that ive can 
assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False 
ideas are those that ive can not. That is the prac- 
tical difference it makes to us to have true ideas ; 
that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is 
all that truth is known as. 

This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth 
of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. 
Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made 
true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a 
process : the process namely of its verifying itself, 
its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its 
vaiid-ation. 

But what do the words verification and validation 
themselves pragmatically mean? They again sig- 
nify certain practical consequences of the verified 
and validated idea. It is hard to find any one 
phrase that characterizes these consequences better 
than the ordinary agreement-formula — just such 
consequences being what we have in mind when- 
ever we say that our ideas 'agree' with reality. They 
lead us, namely, through the acts and other ideas 
which they instigate, into or up to, or towards, other 
parts of experience with which we feel all the while 
— such feeling being among our potentialities — 
that the original ideas remain in agreement. The 



The Criteria of Truth 571 

connexions and transitions come to us from point 
to point as being progressive, harmonious, satisfac- 
tory. This function of agreeable leading is what 
we mean by an idea's verification. Such an account 
is vague and it sounds at first quite trivial, but it 
has results which it will take the rest of my hour 
to explain. 

Let me begin by reminding you of the fact that the 
possession of true thoughts means everywhere the 
possession of invaluable instruments of action; and 
that our duty to gain truth, so far from being a 
blank command from out of the blue, or a 'stunt' 
self-imposed by our intellect, can account for itself 
by excellent practical reasons. 

The importance to human life of having true be- 
liefs about matters of fact is a thing too notorious. 
We live in a world of realities that can be infinitely 
useful or infinitely hamiful. Ideas that tell us which 
of them to expect count as the true ideas in all this 
primary sphere of verification, and the pursuit of 
such ideas is a primary human duty. The posses- 
sion of truth, so far from being here an end in itself, 
is only a preliminary means toward other vital satis- 
factions. If I am lost in the woods and starved, 
and find what looks like a cow path, it is of the ut- 
most importance that I should think of a human 
habitation at the end of it, for if I do so and fol- 
low it, I save myself. The true thought is useful 
here because the house which is its object is useful. 
The practical value of true ideas is thus primarily 
derived from the practical importance of their ob- 
jects to us. Their objects are, indeed, not im- 



572 Readings in Philosophy 

portant at all times. I may on another occasion 
l^ve no use for the house; and then my idea of it, 
however verifiable, will be practically irrelevant, 
and had better remain latent. Yet since almost any 
object may some day become temporarily important, 
the advantage of having a general stock of extr^a 
truths, of ideas that shall be true of merely possible 
situations, is obvious. We store such extra truths 
away in our memories, and with the overflow we 
fill our books of reference. Whenever such an extra 
truth becomes practically relevant to one of our 
emergencies, it passes from cold storage to do work 
in the world and our belief in it grows active. You 
can say of it then either that 'it is useful because 
it is true' or that 'it is true because it is useful'. 
Both these phrases mean exactly the same thing, 
namely that here is an idea that gets fulfilled and 
can be verified. True is the name for whatever 
idea starts the verification process, useful is the 
name for its completed function in experience. True 
ideas would never have been singled out as such, 
would never have acquired a class-name, least of 
all a name suggesting value, unless they had been 
useful from the outset in this way. 

From this simple cue pragmatism gets her general 
notion of truth as something essentially bound up 
with the way in which one moment in our experience 
may lead^us towards other moments which it will 
be worth while to have been led to. Primarily, and 
on the common sense level, the truth of a state of 
mind means this function of a leading that is worth 
while. When a moment in our experience, of any 
kind whatever, inspires us with a thought that is 



The Criteria of Truth 573 

true, that means that sooner or later we dip by 
that thought's guidance into the particulars of ex- 
perience again and make advantageous connexion 
with them. This is a vague enough statement, but 
I beg you to retain it, for it is essential. 

'The- true', to put it very briefly, is only the ex- 
pedient in the toay of our thinking, just as 'the right' 
is only the expedient in the loay of our behaving. 
Expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in 
the long run and on the whole of course; for what 
meets expediently all the experience in sight won't 
necessarily meet all farther experiences equally sat- 
isfactorily. Experience, as we know, has ways of 
boiling over, and making us correct our present 
formulas. 

The 'absolutely' true, meaning what no farther 
experience will ever alter, is that ideal vanishing- 
point towards which we imagine that all our tem- 
porary truths will some day converge. It runs on 
all fours with the perfectly wise man, and with the 
absolutely complete experience; and, if these ideals 
are ever realized, they will all be realized together. 
Meanwhile we have to live today by what truth we 
can get today, and be ready tomorrow to call it 
falsehood. Ptolemaic astronomy, euclidean space, 
aristotelian logic, scholastic metaphysics, were ex- 
pedient for centuries, but human experience has 
boiled over those limits, and we now call these things 
only relatively true, or true within those borders of 
experience. 'Absolutely' they are false ; for we know 



'Ihid., pp. 222-226. 



574 Readings in Philosophy 

that those limits were casual, and might have been 
transcended by past theorists just as they are by 
present thinkers. 

When new experiences lead to retrospective judg- 
ments, using the past tense, what these judgments 
utter ivas true, even tho no past thinker had been 
led there. We live forwards, a Danish thinker has 
said, but we understand backwards. The present 
sheds a backward light on the world's previous 
processes. They may have been truth-processes for 
the actors in them. They are not so for one who 
knows the later revelations of the story. 

This regulative notion of a potential better truth 
to be established later, possibly to be established 
some day absolutely, and having powers of retro- 
active legislation, turns its face, like all pragmatist 
notions, towards concreteness of fact, and towards 
the future. Like the half-truths, the absolute truth 
will have to be made, made as a relation incidental to 
the growth of a mass of verification-experience, to 
which the half true ideas are all along contributing 
their quota. 

I have already insisted on the fact that truth is 
made largely out of previous truths. Men's beliefs 
at any time are so much experience funded. But the 
beliefs are themselves parts of the sum total of the 
v^orld's experience, and become matter, therefore, for 
the next day's funding operations. So far as reality 
.means experienceable reality, both it and the truths 
men gain about it are everlastingly in process of 
mutation — mutation towards a definite goal — it 
may be — but still mutation. 



The Criteria of Truth ' 575 

Mathematicians can solve problems with two va- 
riables. On the Newtonian theory, for instance, 
acceleration varies with distance, but distance also 
varies with acceleration. In the realm of truth- 
processes facts come independently and determine 
our beliefs provisionally. But these beliefs make 
us act, and as fast as they do so, they bring into 
sight or into existence new facts which re-determine 
the beliefs accordingly. So the whole coil and ball 
of truth, as it rolls up, is the product of a double 
influence. Truths emerge from facts ; but they dip 
forward into facts again and add to them ; which 
facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is 
indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The 'facts' 
themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply 
are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start 
and terminate among them. 

The case is like a snowball's growth, due as it is to 
the distribution of the snow on the one hand, and to 
the successive pushes of the boys on the other, with 
these factors co-determining each other incessantly. 

C. Absolutism. 

The conviction that recent work in logic and 
mathem.atics leads to an absolutist philosophy is 
formulated in the essay from vs^hich the following 
is taken : 

In^ any case, the new logic, and the new mathe- 
matics, are m.aking us acquainted with absolute 



' Royc3. William. James and Other Essays, pages 249-254; 
the Macmillan Company, 1911; used by permission of the 
publishers, and Mrs. Royce. 



576 Readings in 'Philosophy 

truth, and are giving to our knowledge of this truth 
a clearness never before accessible to human think- 
ing. And yet the new logic is doing all this in a 
way that to my mind is in no wise a justification of 
the intellectualism which modern instrumentalists 
condemn. For what we thereby learn is that all 
truth is indeed relative to the expression of our will, 
but that the will inevitably determines for itself 
forms of activity which are objectively valid and ab- 
solute, just because to attempt to inhibit these forms 
is once more to act, and is to act in accordance with 
them. These forms are the categories both of our 
thought and of our action. We recognize them 
equally whether we consider, as in ethics, the nature 
of reasonable conduct, or, as in logic, the forms of 
conceptual construction, or, as in mathematics, the 
ideal types of objects that we can define by con- 
structing, as freely as possible, in conformity with 
these forms. When we turn back to the world of 
experience, we inevitably conceive the objects of 
experience in terms of our categories. Hence the 
unity and the transindividual character which 
rightly we assign to the objects of experience. What 
we know about these objects is always relative to our 
human needs and activities. But all of this rela- 
tive knowledge is — however provisionally — de- 
fined in terms of absolute principles. And that is 
why the scientific spirit and the scientific conscience 
are indeed the expression of motives, which you 
can never reduce to mere instrumentalism, and can 
never express in terms of any individualism. And 
that is why, wherever two or three are gathered 



The Criteria of Truth 577 

together in any serious moral or scientific enter- 
prise, they believe in a truth which is far more than 
the mere working of any man's ephemeral asser- 
tions. 

In sum, an absolute truth is one whose denial 
implies the reassertion of that same truth. To us 
men, such truths are accessible only in the realm 
of our knowledge of the forms that predetermine all 
of our concrete activities. Such knowledge we can 
obtain regarding the categories of pure logic and 
also regarding the constructions of pure mathe- 
matics. In dealing, on the other hand, with the 
concrete objects of experience, we are what the in- 
strumentalists suppose us to be, namely, seekers for 
a successful control over this experience. And as 
the voluntarists also correctly emphasize, in all our 
empirical constructions, scientific and practical, we 
express our own individual wills and seek such suc- 
cess as we can get. But there remains the fact 
that in all these constructions we are expressing a 
will which, as logic and pure mathematics teach us, 
has an universal absolute nature, — the same in all 
of us. And it is for the sake of winning some 
adequate expression of this our absolute nature, that 
we are constantly striving in our empirical world 
for a success which we never can obtain at any in- 
stant, and can never adequately define in any merely 
relative terms. The result appears in our ethical 
search for absolute standards, and in our meta- 
physical thirst for an absolute interpretation of the 
universe, — a thirst as unquenchable as the over- 
individual will that expresses itself through all our 



578 Readi7igs in Philosophy 

individual activities is itself world-wide, active, and 
in its essence absolute. 

In recognizing that all truth is relative to the will, 
the three motives of the modern theories of truth 
are at one. To my mind they, therefore, need not 
remain opposed motives. Let us observe their 
deeper harmony, and bring them into synthesis. 
And, then what I have called the trivialities of mere 
instrumentalism will appear as what they are, — 
fragmentary hints, and transient expressions, of 
that will whose life is universal, whose form is ab- 
solute, and whose laws are at once those of logic, of 
ethics, of the unity of experience, and of whatever 
gives sense to life. 

Tennyson, in a well-known passage of his "In 
Memoriam", cries : 

"Oh living Will that shalt endure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
Rise in the spiritual rock, 
■ F'low through our deeds and make them pure." 

That cry of the poet was an expression of moral 
and religious sentiment and aspiration ; but he might 
have said essentially the same thing if he had chosen 
the form of praying: Make our deeds logical. Give 
our thoughts sense and unity. Give our Instru- 
mentalism some serious unity of eternal purpose. 
Make our Pragmatism more than the mere passing 
froth of waves that break upon the beach of triv- 
iality. In any case, the poet's cry is an expression 
of that Absolute Pragmatism, of that Voluntarism, 



The Criteria of Truth 579 

which recognizes all truth as the essentially eternal 
creation of the Will. What the poet utters is that 
form of Idealism which seems to me to be indicated 
as the common outcome of all the three motives that 
underlie the modern theory of truth. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE STATUS OF VALUES 

A. SUPERNATURALISM. 

Supernaturalism represents standards of value as 
given to man from a source and authority higher 
than he, by an external donation, as in the following 
classic instance : 

In' the third month after the children of Israel 
were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same 
day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. And 
when they were departed from Rephidim, and were 
come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in 
the wilderness ; and there Israel encamped before the 
mount. And Moses went up unto God, and Jehovah 
called unto him out of the mountain, saying. Thus 
shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the chil- 
dren of Israel : Ye have seen what I did unto the 
Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and 
brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye 
will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, 
then ye shall be mine own possession from among all 
peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be 
unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. 
These are the words which thou shalt speak unto 
the children of Israel. 

And Moses came and called for the elders of the 



^ Exodus, Chapter XIX ; American Standard Edition, 
previously cited. 

(580) 



The Status of Values 581 

people, and set before them all these words which 
Jehovah commanded him. And all the people an- 
swered together, and said, All that Jehovah hath 
spoken we will do. And Moses reported the words 
of the people unto Jehovah. And Jehovah said unto 
Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that 
the people may hear when I speak with thee, and 
may also believe thee forever. And Moses told the 
words of the people unto Jehovah. And Jehovah 
said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify 
them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their 
garments, and be ready against the third day; for 
the third day Jehovah will come down in the sight 
of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt 
set bounds unto the people round abdut, saying. Take 
heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, 
or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the 
mount shall be surely put to death: no hand shall 
touch him, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot 
through ; whether it be beast or man, he shall not 
live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall 
come up to the mount. And Moses went down from 
the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people ; 
and they washed their garments. And he said unto 
the people. Be ye ready against the third day : come 
not near a woman. 

And it came to pass on the third day, when it was 
morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, 
and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of 
a trumpet exceeding loud; and all the people that 
were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought 
forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and 
they stood at the nether part of the mount. And 



582 Readings in Philosophy 

mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked, because 
Jehovah descended upon it in fire; and the smoke 
thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and 
the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the 
voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, Moses 
spake, and God answered him by a voice. And 
Jehovah came down upon mount Sinai, to the top 
of the mount: and Jehovah called Moses to the top 
of the mount; and Moses went up. And Jehovah 
said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest 
they break through unto Jehovah to gaze, and many 
of them perish. And let the priests also, that come 
near to Jehovah, sanctify themselves, lest Jehovah 
break forth upon them. And Moses said unto 
Jehovah, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai : 
for thou didst charge us, saying. Set bounds about 
the mount, and sanctify it. And Jehovah said unto 
him, Go, and get thee down; and thou shalt come up, 
thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests 
and the people break through to come up unto 
Jehovah, lest he break forth upon them. So Moses 
went dov/n unto the people, and told them. 

B. Agnostic Relativism. 

Russell, from whose essays the following passage 
is taken, is usually classed as a New Realist. But 
the selection given here is a good expression of the 
spirit of Agnostic Relativism : 

When^ first the opposition of fact and ideal grows 
fully visible, a spirit of fiery revolt, of fierce hatred 



" Russell, B. A. W.; Mysticism and Logic, essay entitled "A 
Free Man's Worship", pages 51-57; Longman's, Green and 
Co., 191S; used by permission of the publishers. 



The Status of Values 583 

of the gods, seems necessary to the assertion of 
freedom. To defy with Promethean constancy a 
hostile universe, to keep its evil always in view, 
always actively hated, to refuse no pain that the 
malice of Power can invent, appears to be the duty 
of all who will not bow before the inevitable. But 
indignation is still a bondage, for it compels our 
thoughts to be occupied with an evil world; and in 
the fierceness of desire from which rebellion springs, 
there is a kind of self-assertion which it is neces- 
sary for the wise to overcome. Indignation is a 
submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires ; 
the Stoic freedom in which wisdom consists is found 
in the submission of our desires, but not our 
thoughts. From the submission of our desires 
springs the virtue of resignation ; from the freedom 
of our thoughts springs the whole world of art and 
philosophy, and the vision of beauty by which, at 
last, we half reconquer the reluctant world. But 
the vision of beauty is possible only to unfettered 
contemplation, to thoughts not v/eighted by the load 
of eager wishes; and thus Freedom comes only to 
those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield 
them any of those personal goods that are subject 
to the mutations of Time. 

Although the necessity of renunciation is evidence 
of the existence of evil, yet Christianity, in preach- 
ing it, has shov\^n a wisdom exceeding that of the 
Promethean philosophy of rebellion. It must be 
admitted that, of the things we desire, some, though 
they prove impossible, are yet real goods; others, 
however, as ardently longed for, do not form part 
of a fully purified ideal. The belief that what must 



584 Readings in Philosophy 

be renounced is bad, though sometimes false, is far 
less often false than untamed passion supposes ; and 
the creed of religion, by providing a reason for 
proving that it is never false, has been the means of 
purifying our hopes by the discovery of many aus- 
tere truths. 

But there is in resignation a further good ele- 
ment: even real goods, when they are unattainable, 
ought not to be fretfully desired. To every man 
comes, sooner or later, the great renunciation. For 
the young, there is nothing unattainable; a good 
thing desired with the whole force of a passionate 
will, and yet impossible, is to them not credible. 
Yet, by death, by illness, by poverty, or by the voice 
of duty, we must learn, each one of us, that the 
world was not made for us, and that, however 
beautiful may be the things we crave. Fate may 
nevertheless forbid them. It is the part of courage, 
when misfortune comes, to bear without repining 
the ruin of our hopes, to turn away our thoughts 
from vain regrets. This degree of submission to 
Power is not only just and right; it is the very gate 
of wisdom. 

But a passive renunciation is not the whole of 
wisdom ; for not by renunciation alone can we build 
a temple for the worship of our own ideals. Haunt- 
ing foreshadowings of the temple appear in the 
realm of imagination, in music, in architecture, in 
the untroubled kingdom of reason, and in the golden 
sunset magic of lyrics, where beauty shines and 
glows, remote from the touch of sorrow, remote 
from the fear of change, remote from the failures 
and disenchantments of the world of fact. In the 



The Status of Vahies 585 

contemplation of these things the vision of heaven 
will shape itself in our hearts, giving at once a touch- 
stone to judge the world about us, and an inspira- 
tion by which to fashion to our needs whatever is 
not incapable of serving as a stone in the sacred 
temple. 

Except for those rare spirits that are born with- 
out sin, there is a cavern of darkness to be traversed 
before that temple can be entered. The gate of the 
cavern is despair, and its floor is paved with the 
gravestones of abandoned hopes. There Self must 
die ; there the eagerness, the greed of untamed desire 
must be slain, for only so can the soul be freed from 
the empire of Fate, But out of the cavern the Gate 
of Renunciation leads again to the daylight of wis- 
dom, by whose radiance a new insight, a new joy, a 
new tenderness, shine forth to gladden the pilgrim's 
heart. 

When, without the bitterness of impotent rebel- 
lion, we have learnt both to resign ourselves to the 
outward rule of Fate and to recognize that the non- 
human world is unworthy of our worship, it becomes 
possible at last so to transform and refashion the 
unconscious universe, so to transmute it in the 
crucible of imagination, that a new image of shining 
gold replaces the old idol of clay. In all the multi- 
form facts of the world — in the visual shapes of 
trees and mountains and clouds, in the events of the 
life of man, even in the very omnipotence of Death 
— the insight of creative idealism can find the re- 
flection of a beauty which its own thoughts first 
made. In this vv^ay mind asserts its subtle mastery 
over the thoughtless forces of Nature. The more 



586 Readings in Philosophy 

evil the material with which it deals, the more 
thwarting to untrained desire, the greater is its 
achievement in inducing the reluctant rock to yield 
up its hidden treasures, the prouder its victory in 
compelling the opposing forces to swell the pageant 
of its triumph. Of all the arts. Tragedy is the 
proudest, the most triumphant ; for it builds its shin- 
ing citadel in the very center of the enemy's country, 
on the very summit of his highest mountain; from 
its impregnable watchtowers, his camps and ar- 
senals, his columns and forts, are all revealed ; with- 
in its walls the free life continues, while the legions 
of Death and Pain and Despair, and all the servile 
captains of tyrant Fate, afford the burghers of the 
dauntless city new spectacles of beauty. Happy 
those sacred ramparts, thrice happy the dwellers on 
that all-seeing eminence. Honour to those brave 
warriors who, through countless ages of warfare, 
have preserved for us the priceless heritage of lib- 
erty, and have kept undefiled by sacrilegious in- 
vaders the home of the unsubdued. 

But the Beauty of Tragedy does but make visible 
a quality which, in more or less obvious shapes, is 
present always and everywhere in life. In the 
spectacle of Death, in the endurance of intolerable 
pain, and in the irrevocableness of a vanished past, 
there is a sacredness, an overpowering awe, a feel- 
ing of the vastness, the depth, the . inexhaustible 
mystery of existence, in which, as by some strange 
marriage of pain, the suiferer is bound to the world 
by bonds of sorrow. In these moments of insight ; 
we lose all eagerness of temporary desire, all strug- 
gling and striving for petty ends, all care for the 



The Status of Values 587 

lUtle trivial things that, to a superficial view, make 
up the common life of day by day; we see, sur- 
rounding the narrow raft illumined by the flickering 
light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on 
whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; from 
the great night without, a chill blast breaks in upon 
our refuge ; all the loneliness of humanity amid hos- 
tile forces is concentrated upon the individual soul, 
which must struggle alone, with what of courage it 
can command, against the whole weight of a uni- 
verse that cares nothing for its hopes and fears. 
Victory, in this struggle with the powers of dark- 
ness, is the true baptism into the glorious company 
of heroes, the true initiation into the overmastering 
beauty of human existence. From that awful en- 
counter of the soul with the outer world, enuncia- 
tion, wisdom, and charity are born ; and with their 
birth a new life begins. To take into -the inmost 
shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose pup- 
pets we seem to be — Death and change, the irrev- 
ocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of 
man before the blind hurry of the universe from 
vanity to vanity — to feel these things and know 
them is to conquer them. 

This is the reason why the Past has such magical 
power. The beauty of its motionless and silent pic- 
tures is like the enchanted purity of late autumn, 
when the leaves, though one breath would make 
them fall, still glow against the sky in golden glory. 
The Past does not change or strive; like Duncan, 
after life's fitful fever it sleeps well ; what was eager 
and grasping, what was petty and transitory, has 
faded away, the things that were beautiful and 



588 Readings in Philosophy 

eternal shine out in it like stars in the night. Its 
beauty, to a soul not worthy of it, is unendurable; 
but to a soul which has conquered Fate it is the key 
of religion. 

The life of man, viewed outwardly, is but a small 
thing in comparison with the forces of Nature. The 
slave is doomed to worship Time and Fate and 
Death, because they are greater than anything he 
finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of 
things which they devour. But, great as they are, 
to think of them greatly, to feel their passionless 
splendor, is greater still. And such thought makes 
us free men ; we no longer bow. before the inevitable 
in Oriental subjection, but we absorb it, and make 
it a part of ourselves. To abandon the struggle 
for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of tem- 
porary desire, to burn with passion for eternal 
things — this is emancipation, and this is the free 
man's worship. And this liberation is effected by a 
contemplation of Fate; for Fate itself is subdued 
by the mind which leaves nothing to be purged by the 
purifying fire of Time. 

United with his fellow-men by the strongest of 
ail ties, the tie of common doom, the free man finds 
that a new vision is with him always, shedding over 
every daily task the light of love. The life of man 
is a long march through the night, surrounded by 
invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, to- 
wards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where 
none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, 
our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the 
silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is 
the time in which we can help them, in which their 



The Stahis of Values 589 

happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed 
sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by 
the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a 
never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, 
to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh 
in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but 
let us think only of their need — of the sorrows, the 
difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the 
misery of their lives ; let us remember that they are 
fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the 
same tragedy with ourselves. And so, when their 
day is over, when their good and their evil have be- 
come eternal by the immortality of the past, be it 
ours to feel that, where they suffered, where they 
failed, no deed of ours was the cause ; but wherever 
a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts, we 
were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, 
with brave words in which high courage glowed. 

Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all 
his race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark. 
Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, om- 
nipotent matter rolls on its relentless way ; for Man, 
condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow him- 
self to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains 
only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty 
thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the 
coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at 
the shrine that his own hands have built; undis- 
mayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind 
free from the wanton tyranny that rules his out- 
ward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces 
that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his 
condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyield- 



590 Readings in Philosophy 

ing- Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fash- 
ioned despite the trampling march of unconscious 
power. 

C. Oneness of God and Man. 

Professor Royce here presents his interpretation 
of the place of human interests in the interests of a 
Supreme Mind: 

There^ is a sense in which man is a product of 
Nature, and in which his life is but one incident in a 
vast process of Evolution, — a process whose inner 
meaning- in great part escapes us. We have tried 
to see the extent to which just this is true. There 
is also a sense in which man's life as a Self appears 
to be a mere series of relatively accidental expe- 
riences, and of shifting social contrast-effects. We 
have attempted to show how far this also is the case. 
There is a philosophical truth in saying, as tradition 
and common sense long ago said, that man is a prey 
of fortune, — that his life is a shadow, that all his 
essence seems insubstantial, transient, and uncer- 
tain, and that, so far as you find law governing his 
life, it appears to the external observer to be a 
merely natural law, indifi'erent to the meanings and 
ideals that man himself most prizes. And to such 
truth also we have endeavored to be just. But 
when we were led to emphasize all these limitations 
of human nature, our interpretation of them was 
from the outset determined by the inevitable conse- 



' Royce, The World and the Individual, Vol. II, pages 415- 
445; the Macmillan Company, 1904; used by permission of 
the publishers and Mrs. Roj^ce. 



The Status of Values 591 

quences of our general theory of Being. None of 
these aspects of man's existence could appear to us 
startling or strange, or even disappointing, because 
we had long since learned in what sense, and in what 
sense only, these very facts could possess any Being 
whatever. For in thinking of this world, where his 
natural place in the temporal order is so significant, 
man finds that the very link which binds the whole 
universe to this instant's knowledge is a link that 
predetermines what meaning the whole must itself 
possess, and consequently what meaning man's life, 
despite its apparent pettiness, must illustrate. 

To the individual man we have accordingly said: 
Conceive yourself, in the light of your science, as 
this seeming plaything of natural destiny. Know 
your fram.e. Remember not only that you are dust, 
in the ancient sense of that word, but also that you 
are in your inner life, in the way that psychological 
analysis has now rendered familiar, — an insub- 
stantial series of psychical conditions, physically and 
socially determined, precisely in so far as such de- 
termination is possible, — a being whose nature has 
only such permanence as may prove to be involved 
in the permanent meaning of those fleeting condi- 
tions themselves, in case they indeed may possess any 
such meaning. View yourself as an incident, or at 
best an episode, in the world-embracing process of 
evolution. And then, when you have done all this, ask 
afresh this one question : How can I know all these 
things? And how can all these facts themselves 
possess any Being? You will find that the only 
possible answer to your questions will take the form 
of asserting, in the end, that you can know all this, 



592 Readings in Philosophy 

and that all this can be real, only by reason of an 
ontological relation that, when rightly viewed, is 
seen to link yourself, even in all your weakness, to 
the very life of God, and the whole universe to the 
meaning of every Individual. In God you possess 
your individuality. Your very dependence is the 
condition of your freedom, and of your unique sig- 
nificance. The one lesson of your entire course has 
thus been the lesson of the unity of finite and of 
infinite, of temporal dependence, and of eternal sig- 
nificance, of the World and all its Individuals, of 
the One and the Many, of God and Man. Not only 
in spite, then, of our finite bondage, but because of 
M^hat it means and implies, we are full of the pres- 
ence and freedom of God. 

But now, emphasizing the especially human as- 
pect of our ontology, and the especially ethical sig- 
nificance of our theoretical results, we must expound 
a little more fully some of these our characteristic 
theses. And the particular further task of this 
closing lecture must be to bring together the various 
threads of our argument, in so far as they bear 
upon the doctrine of the individual Self, and of the 
more practical aspects of this its union with God. 
We have laid our basis. Let us indicate some of 
the consequences of our theory. 

II. 

And next, as to our whole definition of the nature 
of the Divine Life. If our foregoing argument has 
been sound, our Idealism especially undertakes to 
give a theory of the gene):al place and of the signifi- 
cance of Personality in the Universe. Personality, 



The Status of Values 593 

to our view, is an essentially ethical category. A 
Person is a conscious being, whose life, temporally 
viewed, seeks its completion through deeds, while 
the same life, eternally viewed, consciously attains 
its perfection by means of the present knowledge 
of the whole of its temporal strivings. Now from 
our point of view, God is a Person. Temporally 
viewed, his life is that of the entire realm of con- 
sciousness in so far as, in its temporal efforts to- 
wards perfection, this consciousness of the universe 
passes from instant to instant of the temporal order, 
from act to act, from experience to experience, from 
stage to stage. Eternally viewed, however, God's 
life is the infinite whole that includes this endless 
temporal process, and that consciously surveys it as 
one life, God's own life. God is thus a Person, be- 
cause, for our view, he is self-conscious, and because 
the Self of which he is conscious is a Self whose 
eternal perfection is attained through the totality 
of these ethically significant temporal strivings, 
these processes of evolution, these linked activities 
of finite Selves. We have long since ceased, indeed, 
to suppose that this theory means to view God's per- 
fection, or his self-consciousness as the temporal 
result of any process of evolution, or as an event 
occurring at the end of time, or at the end of any 
one process, however extended, that occurs in time. 
The melody does not come into existence contempo- 
raneously with its own last note. Nor does the sym- 
phony come into full existence only when its last 
chord sounds. On the contrary, the melody is the 
whole, whereof the notes are but abstracted frag- 



594 Readings in Philosophy 

ments ; the symphony is the totality, to which the last 
chord contributes no more than does the first bar. 
And precisely so it is, as we have seen, with the re- 
lation between the temporal and the eternal order. 
God in his totality as the Absolute Being is con- 
scious, not in time, but of time, and of all that in- 
finite time contains. In time there follow, in their 
sequence, the chords of his endless symphony. For 
him is this whole symphony of life at once. More- 
over there is indeed, for our doctrine, no temporal 
conclusion of the world's successive processes, — no 
one temporal goal of evolution, — no single temporal 
event to which the whole creation moves. For as, 
even in the finite symphony, every chord restlessly 
strives after a musical perfection that in itself it 
only hints, and that it does not yet finally contain, 
but as nevertheless this very perfection is in the 
whole symphony itself, viev/ed as a whole, — so, in 
the universe, every temporal instant contains a seek- 
ing after God's perfection. Yet never, at any in- 
stant of time, is this perfection attained. It is 
present only to the consciousness that views the in- 
finite totality of this very seeking. 

Such has been our doctrine concerning the divine 
life, when taken in its character as the life of the 
Absolute. That a conception of an endless temporal 
process which nevertheless constitutes one whole, 
present to one consciousness, is a possible concep- 
tion, and that this conception is free from the self- 
contradictions which have usually been ascribed to 
the idea of the Infinite, — all this I have endeavored 
iQ show at length. But in consequence of this end- 
lessness which I ascribe to the temporal order, and 



The Status of Values 595 

in consequence of the fact that no last event, no 
final occurrence in the sequence of the world's life, is 
to my mind possible, and in consequence of the 
wholeness of meaning which I nevertheless attribute 
to the divine consciousness itself, I am led to add 
here a word as to the general significance of his- 
torical progress, and of the evolutionary processes 
of the universe, — a word that will prove necessary 
for the purposes of this our concluding lecture. 

At every instant, in the temporal order, God's 
will is in process of expressing itself. Now since 
this is true of every instant of time, it follows that 
every stage of the world-process, viewed as God 
views it, stands in an immediate relation to God's 
whole purpose. Hence there is, indeed, always 
progress in the universe in so far as at any instant 
some specific finite end is nearing or is winning its 
temporal attainment. Yet those are wrong who lay 
such stress upon the conception of progress as to 
assert that, in order for the world to attain a divine 
meaning at all, it is necessary to suppose whatever 
comes later in time to be in all respects better, or to 
be in every way nearer to God's perfection, than is 
what comes earlier in time. To make this assertion 
is to declare that in the divine order of the universe 
there is a Law of Universal Progress in time, so 
that all temporal things grow, by God's will, in all 
respects better as the world goes on. But our view 
does not make this assertion. Unquestionably, in 
the temporal order, if this is indeed, as we have 
asserted, a Moral Order, there is always in some 
respects Progress, because there is always a seeking 
of some new form and partial expression of Being, 



596 Readings in Philosophy 

and a passing on towards such new forms and 'ex- 
pressions. Moreover, as we have seen, there are 
new Ethical Individuals originating in time, and 
thenceforth adding their significance to the world's 
process. But if the temporal world thus always 
contains progress, it none the less obviously always 
involves, for any temporally limited conscious view, 
decay. Temporal progress, then, is only one aspect 
of the temporal order. For, as we pass on into our 
own future, we lose closer conscious touch with our 
own past. The growth of the man involves the 
death of his own childhood, with its special sugges- 
tions of divine beauty. The maturity of age means 
the loss of youth. For us mortals, every new tem- 
poral possession includes the irrevocable loss of 
former conscious possessions. Now this same ten- 
dency, as we have earlier seen, seems to hold true of 
all the irreversible process of universal Nature. For 
in Nature, too, nothing recurs. The broken china 
will not mend. The withered flowers bloom no more. 
The sun parts forever with its heat. Tidal friction 
irrevocably retards the revolution of the earth. 
And all these things, while they include the very 
conditions of progress, also involve decay. 

In brief, it is, with the occurrences of the succes- 
sive movements of time, or with the stages of life, 
precisely as it is with whatever else in the universe 
you learn to conceive as an individual fact. One 
finite individual, taken as such, never possesses the 
precise and unique perfections of its fellow, /. e., of 
any other individual. Hence whenever you have 
to pass, in your finite experience, from a partial 
view of one individual fact to a similar view of an- 



The Status of Values 597 

other individual fact, you lose something as well 
as gain something; and of this truth you become 
more clearly aware the nearer you come to an in- 
sight into the true natures of the objects concerned. 
Nothing can really be spared from the whole, i. e., 
from the universe. Hence every transition, such as 
we make in our finite experience, is a loss as well as 
a gain. No progress therefore is mere progress. 
Every growth is also a decay. Every attainment of 
temporal good is also the suffering of a temporal ill. 
And just that is what every mother observes when 
she learns to mourn because her children win the 
very maturity that she has all the. while longed and 
striven to help them win. Just such is our expe- 
rience too when we listen to music. In hearing the 
Heroic Symphony of Beethoven, how easily, during 
the Funeral March, — yes, even during the trium- 
phant glories of the closing movement, — how easily, 
I say, may not the hearer wish himself back again 
in the midst of the striving life that the opening 
theme of the first movement introduces. Finite gain 
is also finite loss. This is the axiom of the temporal 
world, in so far as you view its events under the con- 
ditions of any finite span of conscious survey. Hence 
mere progress, — Progress without any admixture 
of temporal decay and loss, — is not the law of the 
sequent events of the world. 

On the other hand, in so far as any finite con- 
sciousness seeks, in its own future, a temporal goal 
that it has not yet won, and then approaches that 
goal, — ^ for just this consciousness, in view of just 
this goal, there is indeed Progress. Now from our 
point of view, the general rationality of the world's 



598 Readings in Philosophy 

temporal processes assures us that at all times there 
is, on the whole, and despite countless hindrances 
and evils, precisely this sort of attainment of sig- 
nificant goals occurring in the world. Hence Prog- 
ress is, in one sense, but by no means in every sense, 
a fact always present in time. It is always present 
in the sense that at every moment of time some new 
and significant goal, that never before was attained, 
is approached by the finite agents whose will is just 
now in question. They seek new good, and, despite 
all evil, they always tend to win good, and always 
have some measure of success in striving intelli- 
gently for such good. On the other hand. Progress 
is not universal, if by universal Progress you mean a 
condition in which the temporal should be in all 
essential respects better at any one moment than it 
ever was before. On the contrary, you can always 
say that in some respects the finite universe of any 
one temporal instant is worse than it ever was before, 
since it has irrevocably lost all those perfections that 
the past contained, and that now are sought for in 
vain, while with every new temporal instant of the 
world more and still more of such perfections become 
lost beyond recall in the past. For instance. Prog- 
ress for mankind here on earth is not universal ; for, 
remember, we have lost, beyond earthly human re- 
call, the Greeks, and the constructive genius of a 
Shakespeare or of a Goethe; and these are, indeed, 
for us mortals, simply irreparable losses. Yet, on 
the other hand. Progress in a sense is universal for 
mankind ; for daily civilization, retaining some of its 
ancient treasures, adds new ones; and, aiming at 
goods never yet won, attains them. 



The Status of Values 599 

The one most essentially progressive aspect of the 
temporal order is that which is due to the appear- 
ance of new Ethical Individuals. For their perfec- 
tions are additions to the world's stock of ideal goods ; 
and they, as we shall see, do not pass away. Yet it 
has to be remembered that a new Ethical Individual, 
considered in any one temporal stage of his life, is 
not vierely an added perfection, that the world never 
possessed before. He is also an added problem, — a 
new source of conflict and of painful endeavor. Only 
from the eternal point of view is he finally viewed 
as a perfection. In time he may appear, for a long 
while, as a new evil. 

Now, it is worth while to recall such consider- 
ations, simple as they are, whenever we are con- 
cerned to conceive the relation of Progress, or of 
that still more generally conceived realm of proc- 
esses called Evolution, to the divine life. As a fact, 
all ages are present at once as elements in an infinite 
significant process to the divine insight. Every age 
therefore has, as the historian Ranke once said of 
the ages of human history, its "unmittelbare Bezie- 
hung auf die Gottheit". All things always work to- 
gether for good from the divine point of view; and 
whoever can make this divine point of view in any 
sense his own, just in so far sees that they do so, 
despite the inevitable losses and sorrows of the tem- 
poral order. 

Ill 

So much, then, for some results of our general 
view of the divine Personality, and of the relation 
between the temporal and eternal aspects of its life. 
And now, in the next place, for our view of the 



600 Readings in Philosophy 

human Person. Man, too, in our view, is a Person. 
He is not, indeed, an Absolute Person ; for he needs 
his conscious contrast with his fellows, and with 
the whole of the rest of the universe, to constitute 
him what he is. He is, however, a conscious being 
whose life, temporally viewed, seeks its completion 
through deeds. That from the eternal point of view 
this same life of the individual man, viewed as inten- 
tionally contrasted with the life of all the rest of the 
world, consciously attains its perfection by means 
of the knowledge of the whole of its temporal striv- 
ings, — this is, indeed, a corollary of our foregoing 
doctrine, a corollary which we 'have yet more pre- 
cisely to develop. It is just this corollary which 
constitutes the basis of the philosophical theory of 
Immortality, — a theory we have here briefly to char- 
acterize and to explain. 

The human Self, as we earlier saw, is not a Thing, 
nor yet a Substance, but a Life with a Meaning. I, 
the individual, am what I am by virtue of the fact 
that my intention, my meaning, my task, my desire, 
my hope, my life, stand in contrast to those of any 
other individual. If I am any Reality whatever, 
then I am doing something that nobody else can do, 
and meaning something that nobody else can mean ; 
and I have my relatively free will that nobody else 
can possess. The uniqueness of my meaning is the 
one essential fact about me. 

But when with this consideration in mind we 
turn to ask about the relation of the human Self to 
Time, our first impression is that our doctrine gives 
no positive decision as to how long a temporal proc- 
ess is needed for the complete expression of the 



The Status of Values 601 

whole life and the entire meaning of any one human 
Self. And as a fact, if we take the term "Self" with 
reference to those varieties of meaning that before 
engaged our attention when we discussed the em- 
pirical Ego, we see at once that there is a sense in 
which what can be called a particular finite Ego 
gets its temporal expression, in so far as you view 
that expression apart from the rest of the universe, 
only within some very limited portion of time. The 
Self, as we said, can be arbitrarily limited, if you 
v^^ill, to this instant's passing selfhood, taken as in 
contrast to all the rest of the universe of Being. The 
Self of this finite idea, of this passing thrill of In- 
ternal Meaning, is, indeed, if you choose so to regard 
it, something that, from God's point of view, and in 
its relation to God, is seen as a genuine Self, — an 
Individual. For, as we have from the outset ob- 
served, the Self of this instant's longing has its true 
and conscious relations to all the rest of the infinite 
realm of Being. We men are, indeed, just now not 
wholly conscious of the true individual meaning of 
even this passing moment. But in God this meaning 
becomes conscious. 

For this instant has its twofold aspect, the tem- 
poral and the eternal. Viewed temporally, it is just 
something that now occurs, and that, seen as God 
sees it, has its own unique contrast with every other 
event in the universe, and that also is in so far no 
other event, and no other Self. Nowhere else in time 
yAW its precise contents recur. Viewed eternally, it 
finds the complete and individual expression of its 
whole meaning in God's entire life. In so far as it 
is conscious of its true relations to the divine, it is 



602 Readings in Philosophy 

this unique prayer for the coming of the kingdom 
of heaven. And in the eternal wholeness of the 
divine life, this prayer is answered. Browning's 
wonderful little poem, The Boy a7j,d the Angel, well 
expresses this aspect of the twofold meaning of everj^ 
instant of finite individuality. Here and now, and 
not merely elsewhere and in the far-off future, this 
instant's song of praise, this moment's search after 
God, is the temporal expression of a value that is 
unique, and that would be missed as a lost perfection 
of the eternal world if it were not known to God as 
just this finite striving. The temporal brevity of the 
instant is here no barrier to its eternal significance. 
And in so far, the lesson of our whole theory is that, 
when you are viewed as just this momentary Self, 
working here in the darkness of your finitude upon 
the task of your earthly life, you have not to endure 
temporally, for a long time, in order to be linked to 
God. In Him you are even now at home. For you 
here mean, by every least act of service, infinitely 
more than you find presented to your human form of 
consciousness; and in God this meaning of yours, 
just as the true meaning of this temporal instant's 
deed, wins its eternal and self-conscious expression. 
But now, of course, as we have long since seen, 
the Self of the single temporal instant is far from 
being the whole human Self as we rightly come to 
contrast that Self of the Individual with all the rest 
of the world. The whole human self, as we have 
seen, is the Self of the unique life-plan. And this 
Self needs a temporally extended expression, which 
no singlie instant of our human experience contains. 
The Self thus viewed has a meaning that seeks unity 



The Status of Values 603 

with God only through the temporal attainments of 
goals in a series of successive deeds. And of course 
the Self, taken in this sense, is a far truer expres- 
sion of what we mean by our individuality than is 
the Self of any one temporal instant. Yet here again 
the length of temporal expression that is required 
for the embodiment of any one type of finite individ- 
uality varies with the temporal significance of the 
ideal that may be in question in defining the Self. 
A life plan, in so far as it is conscious only of brief 
temporal purposes, needs only a brief life to accom- 
plish its little task. The Self that merely reads this 
lecture to you, on the present occasion, is indeed, 
from the eternal point of view, an individual. But 
it is so far an individual of limited finite duration. 
The Self of the mere reader of this lecture has no 
endurance beyond today. It is defined by a contrast 
with the rest of the universe that is especially deter- 
mined by the conditions of just this temporal aca- 
demic appointment. Its particular social contrast is 
with your present Selfhood as hearers. Its work is 
done when the hour closes. Nowhere else, in time, 
has just that individuality its task, its duty, its deed, 
or its expression. On the other hand, the ethical 
continuity of just this selfhood with the selfhood of 
other tasks, of former lectures, of the writing of 
these lectures, and of my personal obligations to you 
and to the University, is so essential a fact in my 
life, as I ought to view life, that here the sundering 
of one fragment of temporal processes from other 
processes seems especially arbitrary and useless. 
Yet, whenever we undertake any task, however tran- 
sient its temporal expression, that view of the union 



604 Readings in Philosophy 

of God and Man, of the Eternal and the Temporal, 
upon which our whole teaching here depends, re- 
quires us steadfastly to bear in mind that every frag- 
ment of life, however arbitrarily it may be selected, 
has indeed its twofold aspect. It is what it tem- 
porally is, in so far as it is this linked series of 
events, present in experience, and somehow con- 
trasted with all other events in the universe. It is 
what it eternally is, by virtue of those relations 
which appear not now, in our human form of con- 
sciousness, but which do appear, from the divine 
point of view, as precisely the means of giving their 
whole meaning to these transient deeds of ours. To 
view even the selfhood that passes away, even the 
deeds of the hour, as a service of God, and to regard 
the life of our most fragmentary selfhood as the 
divine life taking on human form, — this is of the 
deepest essence of religion. From this point of view 
it is indeed true that now, even through these pass- 
ing deeds, we are expressing what has at- once its 
eternal . and its uniquely individual Being. Here 
God's will shall be done as elsewhere in the temporal 
universe it can never again be done, and has never 
yet been done : — so to resolve is to view our daily 
duty as our duty, and this passing selfhood, even in 
its transiency, as possessing eternal meaning. 

Yet not thus do we discover the adequate view of 
the Human Self to tinie. For the Ethical Self, as we 
have already seen, has its. meaning defined in terms 
of an activity to which no temporal limits can be set 
without confession of failure. When I aim to do my 
duty I aim to accomplish, not merely the unique, but 
such a service that I could never say, at any one tem- 



The Status of Values 605 

« 

poral instant: "There is no more for me to accom- 
plish; my work is 'done. I may rest forever". For 
that is of the very essence of Ethical Selfhood, 
namely, to press on to new tasks, to demand new 
opportunity for service, and to accept a new respon- 
sibility with every instant. It follows that the same 
considerations which imply the intimate union of 
every temporal instant's passing striving with the 
whole life of God, equally imply that an individual 
task which is ideal, which is unique, and which 
means the service of God in a series of deeds such as 
can never end without an essential failure of the 
task, can only be linked with God's life, and can only 
find its completion in this union with God, in an 
individual life which is the life of a conscious Self, 
and which is a deathless life. And thus at length 
we are led to the first formulation of our conception 
of human Immortality. 

IV 

As a fact, the sense in which the human Indi- 
vidual, taken in his wholeness, as one ethical Person 
amongst other Persons, is to be viewed as Immortal, 
may be more precisely defined, at the present stage 
of our inquiry, by means of three distinct yet closely 
linked considerations. 

The first is a consideration founded upon our 
whole theory of the nature of Individuality, as we 
set forth that theory in definmg the doctrine of 
Being. 

We know Being from three sides. Whatever is, 
is something that in one aspect forms a content of 
experience. Nothing has a place in the realm of 



606 Readings in Philosophy 

Reality which is not, in one aspect, something pre- 
sented, found, verified, as a fact known to God, and 
given as a datum of the Absolute Experience. This 
is the first aspect of Reality. But secondly, nothing 
is real which is not also, in another aspect, an object 
conforming to a type,— an object possessing defin- 
able general characters, and embodying Thought, — 
an object expressive of the ideas that the Divine 
Wisdom contemplates. These two aspects of Being 
we studied at length in our foregoing series of lec- 
tures. But we found that these two aspects of Being 
are not the only ones. A third is not less essential, 
and is in fact the most significant of the three. 
What is real is not only a content of experience, and 
not only the embodiment of a type, but it is an indi- 
vidual content of experience, and the unique embodi- 
ment of a type. And we found, as the most essen- 
tial result of our whole analysis of Being, that 
neither in terms of mere experience which contains 
only contents immediately given, nor yet in terms 
of mere abstract thinking, which defines only gen- 
eral types, can the true nature of this third aspect 
of Being, viz., of the individuality of any given fact, 
be expressed or discovered. Individuality is a cate- 
gory of the satisfied Will. This fact is an individual 
fact only in so far as no other fact than this could 
meet the purpose that the world as a whole, and 
consequently every fact in the world, expresses. I 
can then never merely experience that this fact is 
unique, or that this individual is unique. Nor can I 
ever merely, by abstract thinking, define what there 
is about the type of this fact which demands that it 
should be unique, or should be an individual at all. 



The Status of Values 607 

In so far then as I merely feel the presence of con- 
tents of experience, I can postulate that they stand 
for or hint the existence of individuals. But as mere 
observer I never empirically find that this is so. In 
so far as, once having thus felt the presence of facts 
of experience, I proceed, as for instance in my study 
of science, to describe the types and the lav/s of these 
contents of my experience, I can once more postulate 
that I am indeed thinking about realities which, in 
themselves, are individual. But I can never discover, 
by my thinking process taken as such, what consti- 
tutes their individuality. When I become aware of 
the presence of one of my fellow-beings, I never 
either. feel or abstractly conceive why this being is 
such that no other can take his place in Being. For 
if I observe how he looks and acts, I so far do not 
observe in him any reason why another might not 
look and act precisely as he does. And if I proceed 
abstractly to conceive the fashions and laws of his 
behavior, I expressly define only general types. It is 
precisely the no other character, the uniqueness, of 
this individual, the character whereby he is this man 
and nobody else, which neither my observation nor 
my description of my fellow can compass. 

Hence, as we long since saw, for us, creatures of 
fragmentary consciousness, and of dissatisfied will, 
as we here in the temporal order are, the individ- 
uality of all things remains a postulate, constitutes 
for us the central mystery of Being, and is rather 
the object that our exclusive affections seek, that our 
ethical consciousness demands, that love presup- 
poses, than any object which we in our finitude ever 
attain. Now this, our relation to the true individ- 



608 Readings in Philosophy 

uality of the beings of our whole world, holds as well 
in case of the Self of each one of us, as of the re- 
motest star or of God Himself. The individual is 
real; but under our finite conditions of dissatisfied 
longing, the individual is never found. 

Just here, however, lies the first of the three con- 
siderations whereby our general theory of Being has 
a bearing upon the doctrine of Immortality. The 
Self, however you take it, — whether as the Self of 
this instant's longing, or the Self of any temporal 
series of deeds and of experiences, is in itself real. 
It possesses individuality. And it possesses this in- 
dividuality, as we have seen, in God and for God. 
In its relation, namely, to the whole universe of 
experiences and of deeds, this Self occupies its real 
and unique place as such that no other can take that 
place, or can accomplish that task, or can fulfil that 
aim. Now the consciousness which faces the true 
individuality of this Self is, by our whole hypothesis, 
continuous with, and directly one with, the finite and 
fragmentary consciousness that the Self possesses of 
its own present life. The Self can say : "As human 
Self, here and now in time, I know not consciously 
what my own individuality is, or what I really am. 
But God knows. And now God knows this not in so 
far as he is another than myself, i. e. another indi- 
vidual than the Self that I am. He knows me in so 
far as, in the eternal world, in my final union with 
him, I know myself as real. In him, namely, and as 
sharing in his perfect Will, my will comes con- 
sciously to find wherein lies precisely what satisfies 
my will, and so makes my life, this unique life, dis- 
tinct from all other lives. Here, now, in the human 



The Status of Values 609 

form, my life so imperfectly expresses for my pres- 
ent consciousness, my will, that I indeed intend to 
stand in contrast to all other individuals, and to be 
unique ; but still find, in my finite dissatisfaction, that 
I am not here aware how my. will wins its unique 
expression. But in God's will, and as united to him, 
my will does win this unique expression. What is, 
however, in the idealistic world, is somewhere 
known. The knowing, however, that my will wins 
unique expression in my life, and in my life as dis- 
tinct from all other individual lives, is, ipso facto, 
my individual and conscious knowing. Hence in 
God, in the eternal world, and in unity, yet in con- 
trast with all other individual lives, my own Self, 
whose consciousness is here so flickering, attains an 
insight into my own reality and uniqueness". 

The inevitable consequence is that every Self, in 
the eternal world, wins a consciousness of its own in- 
dividual meaning, by virtue of the very fact that it 
sees itself as this unique individual, at one with 
God's whole life, and fulfilling his Will through its 
own unique share in that Will. However mysterious 
our individuality is here, in our temporally present 
consciousness, we, in the eternal world, are aware 
of what our individuality is. We ourselves, and not 
merely other individuals, become, in God, conscious 
of what we are, because, in God, we become aware 
of how our wills are fulfilled through our union with 
him, and of how his Will wins its satisfaction only 
by virtue of our unique share in the whole. *'I shall 
be satisfied," the finite and dissatisfied will may in- 
deed say, ''when I awake in thy likeness". And in 



610 Readings in Philoso^ohy 

our union with God, we are, in the eternal world, 
awake. 

So far, however, we make a statement of the con- 
scious aspect of our union with God, — a statement 
that, in its . reference to the temporal endurance of 
the Self, appears still ambiguous. ■ What we so far 
assert is that, in God, every individual Self, however 
insignificant its temporal endurance may seem, eter- 
nally possesses a form of consciousness that is wholly 
other than this our present flickering form of mortal 
consciousness. And now, precisely such an assertion 
is indeed the -beginning of a philosophical conception 
of Immortality. In brief, so far, we assert that indi- 
viduality is real, and belongs to all our life, but that 
individuality does not appear to us as real individ- 
uality in our present human form of consciousness. 
We accordingly assert that our life, as hid from us 
now, ^in the life of God, has another form of con- 
sciousness than the one which we now possess ; so 
that while we now see through a glass darkly, in God 
we know even as we are known. This doctrine, as 
we shall soon find, implies far more regarding the 
temporal endurance of the Self than v/e have yet 
made wholly manifest. 

V 

But now this first consideration may be supple- 
mented by a second. By the arbitrary selection, and 
isolation, of any one finite Internal Meaning, you 
can, as we have said, regard any temporally brief 
series of conscious finite ideas as a Self. And so 
regarded, this arbitrarily selected Self appears as 
implying, so far, no long continuance. It dies with 



The Status of Values 611 

its own moment, or hour, or year, or age, of the 
world's history. We have indeed just seen that in 
order to be at all, however transiently, such a Self 
has to be an individual fact in the realm of Being, 
and that, as an individual, it is inevitably linked in 
God with a form of self-consciousness in which its 
own life and meaning and place in the universe be- 
come manifest to it as its own. Even such a Self, 
then, possesses, in the eternal world, a form of con- 
sciousness far transcending that of our present 
human type of momentary insight. In your eternal 
union with God you see what even your present life 
and purposes mean ; and they mean, even as they are, 
infinitely more than your human type of conscious- 
ness makes manifest to yourself. But there is, in- 
deed, another aspect of even your most transient life 
as a changing and apparently passmg Self. And 
this aspect comes to light when you ask in what way, 
and in what sense, any finite Self can Come to a tem- 
poral end, can die, can cease to be. A very neglected 
problem of applied metaphysics here awaits our 
treatment. In our seventh lecture of the present 
series we touched upon it briefly in speaking of the 
selective process in nature and in conscious life. It 
recurs here in another form. 

This problem is the one of the very possibility of 
Death. The statement of the problem in these terms 
may surprise. Yet what is our whole metaphysical 
inquiry but a seeking to comprehend the possibility 
of even the most commonplace facts? That death 
occurs, we know. What death is, common sense can- 
not tell us. I propose to take up the question here 
in its most general form, and as a question of meta- 



612 Readings in Philosophy 

pnysics. The physical death of a man is but a spe- 
cial case of the law of the universal transiency of all 
temporal facts. We have studied that law, in for- 
mer lectures, in several aspects. The most universal 
law of Nature we found to be that of the constant 
occurrence of events that, once past, are irrevocable. 
We found that the most general reason for this irrev- 
ocableness of every temporal event is simply the 
individual character of that event as a real fact. 
What once has occurred can never occur again, 
simply because whatever is real is individual, is 
unique, and therefore, in its individuality, is in- 
capable of repetition elsewhere in the world than 
precisely^ where it occurs. The very reason that 
makes us often regard the past as dead beyond recall 
is then the fact, presupposed, but never experienced 
by us in our finite capacity, namely, the fact that the 
past is a realm where unique and individual occur- 
rences have found their place. Because all tem- 
poral happenings, or real events, are incapable of 
being twice present in the world, therefore new 
times must always bring new happenings ; and what 
has once taken place returns not. In this sense, in 
the temporal world, individuality and transiency are 
intimately linked aspects of the universe. 

In dealing with the problem of time, we have 
therefore already dealt, in a sense, with the general 
problem that underlies this whole question about 
death. But here we indeed undertake this problem 
in a more concrete form. In a sense, indeed, the 
life of every temporal instant dies with that in- 
stant, yet what interests us at present is the fact 
of the temporal termination, not of any and every 



The Status of Values 613 

instant's life, but of certain significant series of life- 
processes, whose continuance from moment to mo- 
ment, from year to year, from age to age, we in- 
deed often desire, or regard even as necessary, if 
our human world is to win for us any adequate 
meaning, while nevertheless, as a fact, these 
processes prove to be, from our human point of 
view, of limited duration. Thus springtime dies, 
youth passes away, love loses its own; evolution, as 
we have just seen, goes hand in hand with decay; 
and above all, the lives of human individuals meet 
with a termination in physical death, — a termina- 
tion which is, from our point of view, so meaning- 
less and irrational that it stands as the one classic 
instance of the might of fate, and of the apparently 
hopeless bondage of our human form of existence. 
And now, taking these concrete instances of death 
in our temporal world, and viewing them as pecu- 
liarly impressive and pathetic examples of temporal 
transiency, I once more ask, How, from our idealistic 
point of view, is such death possible at all as a real 
event? Here is a finite fragment of life, — I care 
not what it is, so long as it shall possess, for our 
present human purposes, some deep internal mean- 
ing. It may be the life of a mother's love for her 
infant ; it may be the life of two lovers, dreaming of 
a supernatural happiness ; it may be the enthusiasm 
that inspires a soldier's devotion for his flag, or an 
artist's longing for his ideal; or finally, it may be 
the w^iole personal human life of a hero, of a states- 
man, or of a saint. Now the law of our human 
realm of experience is that any such life some day, 
so far as we can see, comes to an end, and is lost 

40 



614 Readings in Philosophy ' . 

beyond human recall. The mother's love for the 
present infant becomes a dear memory, while the 
infant, perhaps, grows into an evil and pain-inspir- 
ing- maturity. The lovers part, or perhaps forget. 
Fate of all sorts cuts short, sooner or later, the sol- 
dier's, the artist's, the hero's, the saint's activities. 
Now in all such cases, whether or no what we call 
physical death intervenes, the same essential prob- 
lem appears. This is the problem of death in a 
concrete, but still generalized form. Something 
with a meaning comes to an end before that mean- 
ing is worked out to its completion, or is expressed 
with its intended individual wholeness. The prob- 
lem presented by such cases is not to be answered 
by the purely general statement, already made, — 
the statement that everything temporal is transient, 
and that only the eternal whole passes not away. 
That most general statement, by virtue of our theory 
of the temporal order, does indeed point out that 
the eternal perfection of the world of the divine Will 
can only be expressed in a realm of temporal deeds, 
.each one of which, as temporal, is transient, and, as 
an individual deed, is irrevocable. But what now is 
our problem is furnished by those series of events 
in which something individual is attempted, but is, 
within our ken, never finished at all. We ask about 
the death which does not apparently result from 
the mere nature of the time process, from the mere 
necessity that every finite and individual event 
should occupy its one place in the temporal realm. 
No, the death which here concerns us is the ending 
that seems to defeat all the higher types of indi- 
vidual striving known to us. And now, we state 



The Status of Values 615 

this problem, as idealists, thus, How can such death 
as this have any place at all in Being? 

Our clew to the answer is, however, furnished 
to us by our M^hole theory of Being. A realist would 
not venture to raise our question, if once he recog- 
nized the fact of death as a real fact at all. For 
him, death would be an independently real fact ; and 
of no such fact could he consistently ask the reason. 
A mystic would indeed not leave unanswered our 
problem. He would reply, "Death is an illusion." 
But then, for the mystic, aW is illusion. A critical 
rationalist would simply say: "It is the valid law 
of Being. All finite things pass away." But we, 
as idealists, have another task whenever we at- 
tribute Being to any object. For us, to be means to 
fulfil a purpose. If death is real at all it is real 
only in so far as it fulfils a purpose. But now, what 
purpose can be fulfilled by the ending of a life whose 
purpose is so far unfulfilled ? I answer at once, the 
purpose that can be fulfilled by the ending of such a 
life is necessarily a purpose that, in the eternal 
world, is consciously knoivn and seen as continuous 
with, yes, as inchtsive of, the very purpose whose 
fulfilment the temporal death seems to cut short. 
This larger purpose may indeed involve, as we have 
long since seen, the relative inhibition and defeat 
of the lesser purpose. But in our idealistic world 
it cannot involve the mere ignoring of that lesser 
purpose. , The thwarting of the lesser purpose is 
always included within the fulfilment of the larger 
and more integral purpose. The possibility of death 
depends upon the transcending of death through a 
life that is richer and more conscious than is the 



616 Readings in Philosophy 

life which death cuts short, and the richer life in 
question is, in meaning, if not in temporal sequence, 
continuous with the very life that death interrupts. 
Or, to put the case otherwise : A conscious 
process, with a meaning, but with a meaning still 
imperfectly expressed, is cut short, and left with its 
purpose still disembodied. So far we have a fact, 
namely, the fact of death, but so characterized that 
its Being is stated in merely negative terms. We, as 
idealists, ask. What is this death? If real, it is a 
positive fact; it is not something merely negative. 
But what positive fact? For us, all facts are known 
facts, are facts of consciousness and ultimately of 
the consciousness of the Absolute. The defeated 
purpose is such only in so far as it is known, and 
then is known as terminated. But is known, I in- 
sist, by whom? In terms of what individual con- 
scious life does even the Absolute know of the finite 
life that has ended? I answer, the defeated pur- 
pose is known by some conscious being who can say : 
"This was my purpose, but temporally I no longer 
seek its embodiment. I have abandoned it. It is 
no longer a purpose of my life." The life that is 
ended is thus viewed by the Absolute as followed, 
at some period of time, by another life that in its 
meaning is continuous with the first. This new 
life it is which says, "No longer is that terminated 
purpose pursued by me." But now, in our world, 
where only the fulfilment of purpose has any Being 
whatever, the new consciousness, in and for which 
the old life is terminated, must say, "That ceasing 
of my former purpose, that ending of my past life, 
has its meaning; and this meaning is continuous 



The Status of Values 617 

with my own larger meaning. My former Self is 
dead, only in so far as my new Self sees the meaning 
of that death." Or in other words, the new Self is 
really inclusive of and able to transcend the meaning 
of the old Self ; or, in fact, the two Selves really form 
stages in the development of one Individual. Thus 
from our point of view, even the selective process 
which we before studied in Nature is a process in- 
volving survival as well as death. 

Not otherwise, in our idealistic world, is death 
possible. I can temporally die; but I myself, as 
larger individual, in the eternal world, see tohy I 
die ; and thus, in essence, my whole individuality is 
continuous in true meaning with the individuality 
that dies. The lovers may part, but in the eternal 
world, individuality that is temporally sequent to 
theirs, and continuous in meaning with theirs, is 
found as consciously knowing why they parted. Was 
it faithlessness ? Then it was sin ; and in the eternal 
world, this larger individuality is found viewing the 
parting as their fault, for which, as for all sin, aton- 
ing deeds are needed. Was it wisdom that they 
should part? Then, in the eternal world the sorrow 
of their parting is continuous with a willing bearing 
of this parting, as one of time's sorrows. It is so 
with the mother's loss of the infant, or with the 
hero's or artist's pursuit of his ideal. It is so too 
with physical death. How, and in what way, the 
deathless individuality sees itself as including and 
fulfilling the selfhood whose struggles death termi- 
nates, we do not in any detail at present know. That 
this larger selfhood is in the end in unity with the 
divine Selfhood we know; but we know too that it 



618 Readings in Philosophy 

is not as something lost in God, that the dead Self 
of our human . life wins its unity with the divine. 
For our theory implies that when I die, my death 
is possible as a real fact only in so far as, in the 
eternal Vv^orld, at some time after death, an indi- 
vidual lives who consciously says : "It was my life 
that there temporally terminated unfinished, its 
meaning not embodied in its experience. B,ut I 
now, in my higher Self-expression, see why and how 
this was so ; and in God I attain, otherwise, my ful- 
filment and my peace." 

The Possibility of Death, as a metaphysical fact, 
in a world where all facts are facts of conscious- 
ness, and where even the worst sorrows and defeats 
exist only as partial expressions of a divine mean- 
ing, depends, then, upon the deeper fact that who- 
ever dies with his meanings unexpressed, lives, as 
individual, to see, in the eternal world, just his 
unique meaning finally expressed, in a life sequent 
to, although not necessarily temporally continuous 
with, the life that death terminated. I shall finally 
die, in time, only when I come to say of myself, "My 
work is consciously and absolutely accomplished." 

VI 

But this brings us to our third consideration, 
which, in fact, has been already expressed in our 
former words, both in this and in foregoing lectures. 
An ethical task is essentially one of which I can 
never say, '"My work is finished." Special tasks 
come to an end. The work of ofi'ering my unique 
service, as this Individual, to God and to my fellows, 
can never be finished in any time, however great. 



The Status of Values 619 

For always, at any future moment, if I know my 
union with God, I shall know, whatever my form 
of consciousness, that there are my fellows beyond 
me, different from myself, and yet linked by the ties 
of the divine unity to my life and my destiny. I 
. shall know then that I have not yet accomplished 
all of the relations to them which my ethical tasks 
involve. To be an ethical individual is to live a life 
with one goal, but contrasted with all other lives. 
Every deed emphasizes the contrast, and so gives op- 
portunity for new deeds. A consciously last moral 
task is a contradiction in terms. For whenever I 
act, I create a new situation in the world's life, a 
situation that never before was, and that never can 
recur. It is of the essence of the moral law to 
demand, however, that whenever a new deed of 
service is possible, I should undertake to do it. But 
a new deed is possible whenever my world is in a 
new situation. My moral tasks spring afresh into 
life whenever I seek to terminate it. To serve God 
is to create new opportunities for service. My 
human form of consciousness is indeed doubtless a 
transient incident of my immortal life. Not thus 
haltingly, not thus blindly, not thus darkly and igno- 
rantly, shall I always labor. But the service of the 
eternal is an essentially endless service. There can 
be no last moral deed. 

And thus, in three ways, our union with God im- 
plies an immortal and individual life. For, first, 
in God, we are real individuals, and really conscious 
Selves, — a fact which neither human thought nor 
human experience, nor yet any aspect of our present 
form of consciousness, can make present and obvious 



620 Readings in Philosophy 

to our consciousness, as now it is. But since this 
very fact of our eternal and individual Selfhood is 
real as a conscious fact, in God, we too, in him, are 
conscious of our individuality in a form higher than 
that now accessible to us. And secondly, the death 
of an individual is a possible fact, in an idealistic 
world, only in case such death occurs as an incident 
in the life of a larger individual, whose existence as 
this Self and no other, in its individual contrast with 
the rest of the world, is continuous in meaning with 
the individuality that death cuts short. No Self, 
then, can end until itself consciously declares, "My 
work is done, here I cease." But, thirdly, no ethical 
Self, in its union with God, can ever view its task 
as accomplished, or its work as done, or its individ- 
uality as ceasing to seek, in God, a temporal future. 
In Eternity all is done, and we too rest from our 
labors. In Time there is no end to the individual 
ethical task. 



CHAPTER XXVII 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 

A. Hebrew Prophetic Interpretation of His- 
tory. 

Typical passages from among the many in the 
Old Testament are the following: 

'Are^ ye not as the Cushites to me, 

O Israel?' is the oracle of Jehovah. 

'Did I not bring up Israel out of the land of 

Egypt, 
And the Philistines from Caphtor, and Aram 

from Kir? 
Behold the eyes of the Lord Jehovah are upon 

the sinful kingdom. 
And I will destroy it from the face of the 

earth.' 

Who- hath measured in the hollow of his 

hand the waters, 
And ruled off the heavens with a span, 
Or enclosed the dust of the earth in a 

measure, 
Or weighed the mountains in scales. 
And the hills in a balance? 



^ Kent, C. F.: The Sermons, Epistles and Apocalypses of 
Israel's Prophets; page 81; Amos IX, 7, 8; copyright, 
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910; reprinted by permission of 
the publishers. 'Ibid., pp. 337-339; Isaiah XL: 12-31; XLI : 

6, 7. 

(621) 



622 Readings in Philosophy 

Who hath determined the spirit of Jehovah, 
And as his counsellor advised him? 
With whom hath he consulted for enlighten- 
ment, 
And to be instructed in the right. 
And to be shown the way of discernment? 

Lo the nations ! as a drop from a bucket. 
And as dust on a balance are they reckoned. 
Lo the isles ! as a mote he uplifteth, 
And Lebanon is not enough for fuel, 
And its wild beasts for a burnt offering. 
All the nations are as nothing before him, 
They are reckoned by him as void and noth- 
ingness. 

To whom then will ye liken God, 
And what likeness place beside him? 
An image ! a craftsman cast it, 
And a smelter overlays it with gold. 
41:6 Each one helps the other. 

And says to his fellow, Be courageous ! 
7 So the craftsman encourages the smelter, 
The smoother with the hammer him who 

smites the anvil. 
Saying of the plating, It is good; 
And he fastens it securely with nails. 
40:20 He who is too poor to do this 

Chooses a tree that is not decayed, -s 
Seeks for himself a skilled craftsman, 
To set up an image that shall not totter. 



The Philosophy of History 623 

Do ye not know? Do ye not hear? 

Hath it not been told you from the beginning? 

Have ye not been aware from the founding 

of the earth? 
It is he who is enthroned above the vault of 

the earth, 
And its inhabitants are as locusts ; 
Who stretcheth out the heavens as a thin veil, 
And spreadeth them out like a habitable tent. 

It is he who bringeth princes to naught, 
The rulers of the earth he maketh as waste. 
Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely 

have they been sown, 
Scarcely hath the stock taken root in the 

earth, 
But he bloweth upon them and they wither. 
And a whirlwind carries them away like 

stubble. 

To whom then will ye liken me, 

That I should equal him? saith the Holy One. 

Lift up your eyes on high and see : 

Who hath created these? 

He who bringeth forth their host by number, 

And calleth each by his name; 

Of the many mighty and strong. 

Not one is missing. 

Why sayest thou, Jacob, and speakest, 

Israel : 
My way is hid from Jehovah 
And my right is unnoticed by my God? 



624 Readings in Philosophy 

Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? 

An everlasting God is Jehovah. 

The creator of the ends of the earth. 

He fainteth not, neither is he weary, 

His wisdom is unfathomable, 

He giveth vigor to the fainting, 

And upon the powerless he lavisheth 

strength. 
Young men may faint and grow weary. 
And the strongest youths may stumble, 
But they who trust in Jehovah renew their 

vigor, 
They mount on pinions like eagles, 
They run but are never weary, 
They walk but never faint. 

B. Mediaeval Philosophy of History. 

Saint Augustine's view of the place of human his- 
tory in the universal plan of God is suggested in the 
following : 

Op the tivo contrary courses taken by the human 
race from the beginning. 

Of the place and felicity of the local Paradise, to- 
gether with man's life and fall therein, there are 
many opinions, many assertions, and many books, as 
several men thought, spoke and wrote. What we 
held hereof, or could gather out of Holy Scriptures, 
correspondent unto their truth and authority, we 
related in some of the foregoing books: if they be 



^ Augustine, City of God, Book XIII, 1 ; translated by John 
Healey; Temple edition; reprinted by permission of J. M. 
Dent & Co. 



The Philosophy of History 625 

farther looked into, they will give birth to more 
questions, and longer disputations than we now have 
room for: our time is not so large as to permit us 
to argue scrupulously upon every question that may 
be asked by busy heads that are more curious of 
inquiry than capable of understanding. I think 
we have sufficiently discussed the doubts concerning 
the beginning of the world, the soul, and mankind : 
which last is divided into two sorts: such as live 
according to man, and such as live according to 
God. These, we mystically call, "two cities" or 
societies, the one predestined to reign eternally with 
God : the other condemned to perpetual torment with 
the devil. This is their end: of which hereafter. 
Now seeing we have said sufficient concerning their 
original, both in the angels whose number we know 
not, and in the tv/o first parents of mankind : I think 
it fit to pass on to their career, from man's first off- 
spring until he cease to beget any more. Between 
which two points all the time included, wherein the 
livers succeed the diers, is the career of these two 
"cities." Cain therefore was the first begotten of 
those two that were mankind's parents: and he be- 
longs to the city of man : Abel was the later, and 
he belongs to the city of God. For as we see that 
in that one man (as the apostle says) that which is 
spiritual was not first, but that which is natural 
first, and then the spiritual (whereupon all that 
comes from Adam's corrupted nature must needs be 
evil and carnal at first, and then if he be regenerate 
by Christ, becomes good and spiritual afterward) : 
so in the first propagation of man, and course 



626 Readings in Philosophy 

of the ''two cities" of which we dispute, the car- 
nal citizen was born first, and the pilgrim on earth, 
or heavenly citizen, afterwards, being by grace pre- 
destinated, and by grace elected, by grace a pilgrim 
upon earth, and by grace a citizen in heaven. For 
as for his birth, it was out of the same corrupted 
mass that was condemned from the beginning: but 
God like a potter (for this simile the apostle him- 
self uses) out of the same lump, made "one vessel 
to honour and another to reproach." The vessel of 
reproach was made first, and the vessel of honour 
afterwards. For in that one man, as I said, first 
was reprobation, whence we must needs begin (and 
wherein we need not remain), and afterwards, 
goodness, to which we come by profiting, and com- 
ing thither, and therein making our abode. Where- 
upon it follows that no one can be good that has 
not first been evil, though all that be evil become 
not good : but the sooner a man betters himself the 
quicker does this name follow him, abolishing the 
memory of the other. Therefore it is recorded of 
Cain that he built a city, but Abel was a pilgrim, 
and built none. For the city of the saints is above, 
though it have citizens here upon earth, wherein it 
lives as a pilgrim until the time of the kingdom come, 
and then it gathers all the citizens together in the 
resurrection of the body and gives them a kingdom 
to reign in with their King, for ever and ever. 

Of- the origin of Uvo states. 

Thus the two cities are described to be seated: 
the one in worldly possession, the other in heavenly 

■ Ibid., ch. 6. 



The Philosophy of History 627 

hope, both coming out at the common gate of mor- 
tality, M^hich was opened in Adam, out of whose 
condemned race, as out of a putrefied lump, God 
elected some vessels of mercy and some of wrath: 
giving due pains unto the one, and undue grace unto 
the other, that the citizens of God upon earth may 
take this lesson from those vessels of wrath, never 
to rely on their own election but hope to call upon 
the name of the Lord : because the natural will which 
God made (but yet here the Unchangeable made it 
not changeless) may both decline from Him that is 
good, and from all good, to do evil, and that by 
freedom of will; and from evil also to do good, but 
that not without God's assistance. 

The- grounds of the concord and discord between 
the cities of heaven and earth. 

But they that live not according to faith, angle 
for all their peace in the sea of temporal profits : 
whereas the righteous live in full expectation of the 
glories to come, using the occurrences of this world, 
but as pilgrims, not to abandon their course towards 
God for mortal respects, but thereby to assist the 
infirmity of the corruptible flesh, and make it more 
able to encounter with toil and trouble. ¥/herefore 
the necessaries of this life are common, both to the 
faithful and the infidel, and to both their families : 
but the ends of their two usages thereof are far 
different. 

The faithless, "worldly city" aims at earthly 
peace, and settles the self therein, only to have an 
uniformity of the citizens' wills in matters only per- 



'Ihid., Book XV, 17. 



628 Readings in Philosophy 

taining to mortality. And the "Heavenly City", 
or rather that part thereof, which is as yet a pil- 
grim on earth and lives by faith, uses this peace 
also : as it should, it leaves this mortal life, wherein 
such a peace is requisite, and therefore lives (while 
it is here on earth) as if it were in captivity, and 
having received the promise of redemption, and 
divers spiritual gifts as seals thereof, it willingly 
obeys such laws of the ''temporal city" as order the 
things pertaining to the sustenance of this mortal 
life, to the end that both the cities might observe 
a peace in such things as are pertinent hereunto. 
But because that the "earthly city" has some mem- 
bers whom the Holy Scriptures utterly disallow, and 
who standing either too well affected to the devils, or 
being deluded by them, believed that each thing had 
a peculiar deity over it, and belonged to the charge 
of a several god : as the body to one, the soul to an- 
other, and in the body itself the head to one, the 
neck to another, and so of every member: as like- 
wise of the soul, one had the wit, another the learn- 
ing, a third the wrath, a fourth the desire: as also 
in other necessaries or accidents belonging to man's 
life, the cattle, the corn, the wine, the oil, the woods, 
the monies, the navigation, the wars, the marriages, 
the generations, each being a several charge unto a 
particular power, whereas the citizens of the 
"heavenly State" acknowledged but one only God, 
to whom that worship, which is called karpeia was 
peculiarly and solely due; hence came it that the 
"two hierarchies" could not be combined in one reli- 
gion, but must needs dissent herein, so that the 
good part was fain to bear the pride and persecution 



The Philosophy of History 629 

of the bad, had not their own multitude sometimes, 
and the providence of God continually stood for their 
protection. 

This ''celestial society" while it is here on earth, 
increases itself out of all languages, never respect- 
ing the temporal laws that are made against so good 
and religious a practice: yet not breaking, but ob- 
serving their diversity in divers nations, all which 
do tend unto the preservation of earthly peace, if 
they oppose not the adoration of one only God. So 
that you see, the "Heavenly City" observes and re- 
spects this temporal peace here on earth, and the 
coherence of men's wills in honest morality, as far 
as it may with a safe conscience; yea, and so far 
desires it, making use of it for the attainment of the 
peace eternal : which is so truly worthy of that 
name, as that the orderly and uniform combination 
of men in the fruition of God, and of one another 
in God, is to be accounted the reasonable creature's 
only peace, which being once attained, mortality is 
banished, and life then is the true life indeed, nor is 
the carnal body any more an encumbrance to the 
soul, by corruptibility, but is now become spiritual 
perfected and entirely subject unto the sovereignty 
of the will. 

This peace is that unto which the pilgrim in 
faith refers the other which he has here in his pil- 
grimage, and then lives he according to faith, when 
all that he does for the obtaining hereof is by him- 
self referred unto God, and his neighbor withal, be- 
cause being a citizen, he must not be all for himself, 
but sociable in his life and actions. 



630 Readings in Philosophy 

Why* the punishment of the condemned is here 
disputed of before the happiness of the saints. 

Seeing that by the assistance of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, "the Judge of the quick and 
the dead," we have brought both the cities (the one 
whereof is God's and the other the devil's), unto 
their intended consummation, we are now to proceed 
(by the. help of God) in this book, with the declara- 
tion of the punishment due unto the devil and all his 
confederacy. And this I choose to do before I handle 
the glories of the blessed, because both these and 
the wicked are to undergo their sentences in body 
and soul, and it may seem more incredible for an 
earthly body to endure undissolved in eternal pains, 
than without all pain, in everlasting happiness. So 
that when I have shown the possibility of the first, 
it may be a great motive unto the confirmation of 
the latter. Nor does this method want a precedent 
from the Scriptures themselves, which sometimes 
relate the beatitudes of the saints foremost, as here, 
"They that have done good, unto the resurrection 
of life, but they that have done evil, unto the resur- 
rection of condemnation," and sometimes afterward, 
as here, "The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, 
and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things 
that off'end, and them which do iniquity, and shall 
cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wail- 
ing and gnashing of teeth: then shall the just shine 
like the sun, in the kingdom of the Father," and 
again, "And these shall go into everlasting pain; 
but the righteous into life eternal." Besides, he 



Ibid., Book XVII, 1. 



The Philosophy of History 631 

that will look into the prophets shall find this order 
often observed : it were too much for me to recite 
all : my reason why I observe it here, I have set down 
already. 

Whether an earthly body may possibly be incor- 
ruptible by fire. 

What then shall I say unto the unbelievers, to 
prove that a body carnal and living, may endure 
undissolved both against death and the force of 
eternal fire? They will not allow us to ascribe this 
unto the power of God, but urge us to produce it to 
them by some example. If we shall answer them 
that there are some creatures that are indeed cor- 
ruptible, because mortal, and yet do live untouched 
in the midst of the fire : and likewise, that there are 
)a kind of worms that live without being hurt in the 
fervent springs of the hot baths, whose heat some- 
times is such as none can endure; and yet those 
worms do so love to live in it, that they cannot live 
without it; this, either they will not believe unless 
they see it, or if they do see it, or hear it affirmed 
by sufficient authority, then they cavil at it as an in- 
sufficient proof for the proposed question;' for that 
these creatures are not eternal howsoever, and liv- 
ing thus in this heat, nature has made it the means 
of their growth and nutriment, not of their torment. 
As though it were not more incredible that fire 
should nourish anything rather than not consume it. 
It is strange for anything to be tormented by the 
§re, and yet to live ; but it is stranger to live in the 

'Ibid., ch. 2. 



632 Readings in Philosophy 

fire and not to be tormented. If then this latter 
be credible, why is not the first so also ? 

C. Reason in History. 

Hegel's interpretation of the movement of his- 
tory in terms of his own philosophy has been his- 
torically important both as a part of absolute ideal- 
istic philosophy and for the contribution it made to 
the interest in the study of history : 

The^ inquiry into the essential destiny of Reason 
— as far as it is considered in reference to the 
World — is identical with the question, tvhat is the 
ultimate design of the world? And the expression 
implies that that design is destined to be realized. 
Two points of consideration suggest themselves: 
first, the import of this design — its abstract defini- 
tion ; and secondly, its realization. 

It must be observed at the outset, that the 
phenomenon we investigate — Universal History — 
belongs to the realm of Spirit. The term "World", 
includes both physical and psychical Nature. Physi- 
cal Nature also plays its part in the World's History, 
and attention will have to be paid to the fundamental 
natural relations thus involved. But Spirit, and the 
course of its development, is our substantial object. 
Our task does not require us to contemplate Nature 
as a Rational System in itself — though in its own 
proper domain it proves itself such — but simply in 



' Hegel, The Philosophy of History, translated by J. Sibree- 
from the Introduction, pp. 17-44; edition of 1900; used by 
permission of J. B. Lippincott, and Wm. Blackwood and 
Sons. 



The Philosophy of History 633 

its relations to Spirit. On the stage on which we are 
observing it — Universal History — Spirit displays 
itself in its most concrete reality. Notwithstanding 
this (or rather for the very purpose of comprehend- 
ing the general principles which this, its form of 
concrete reality, embodies) we must premise some 
abstract characteristics of the nature of Spirit. 
Such an explanation, however, cannot be given here 
under any other form than that of bare assertion. 
The present is not the occasion for unfolding the 
idea of Spirit speculatively ; for whatever has a 
place in an Introduction, must, as already observed, 
be taken as simply historical ; something assumed 
as having been explained and proved elsewhere; or 
whose demonstration awaits the sequel of the Science 
of History itself. 

We have therefore to mention here : 

(1) The abstract characteristics of the nature 

of Spirit. 

(2) What means Spirit uses in order to realize 
its Idea, 

(3) Lastly, we must consider the shape which 
the perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes — the 
State. 

(1) The nature of Spirit may be understood by 
a glance at its direct opposite — Matter. As the 
essence of Matter is Gravity, so, on the other hand, 
we may affirm that the substance, the essence of 
Spirit is Freedom. All will readily assent to the 
doctrine that Spirit, among other properties, is also 
endowed with Freedom ; but philosophy teaches that 
all the qualities of Spirit exist only through Free- 



634 Readings in Philosoj)hy 

dom ; that all are but means for attaining freedom ; 
that all seek and produce this and this alone. It is 
a result of speculative Philosophy, that Freedom is 
the sole truth of Spirit. Matter possesses gravity in 
virtue of its tendency toward a central point. It is 
essentially composite ; consisting of parts that ex- 
clude each other. It seeks its Unity; and therefore 
exhibits itself as self-destructive, as verging toward 
its opposite [an indivisible point]. If it could at- 
tain this, it would be Matter no longer, it would 
have perished. It strives after the realization of its 
Idea; for in, Unity it exists ideally. Spirit, on the 
contrary, may be defined as that which has its center 
in itself. It has not a unity outside itself, but has 
already found it; it exists m and ivith itself. Matter 
has its essence out of itself; Spirit is self-contained 
existence. Now this is Freedom, exactly. For if I 
am dependent, my being is referred to something else 
which I am not; I cannot exist independently of 
something external. I am free, on the contrary, when 
my existence depends upon myself. ■ This self-con- 
tained existence of Spirit is none other than self-con- 
sciousness — consciousness of one's own being. Two 
things must be distinguished in consciousness ; first, 
the fact that I kfiotu; secondly, tvhat I know. In 
self consciousness these are merged in one ; for Spirit 
knoivs itself. It involves an appreciation of its own 
nature, as also an energy enabling it to realize it- 
self; to make itself actually that which it is poten- 
tially. According to this abstract definition it may 
be said of Universal History, that it is the exhibi- 
tion of Spirit in the process of working out the 
knowledge of that which it is potentially. And as 



The Philosophy of History 635 

the germ bears in itself the whole nature of the tree, 
and the taste and form of its fruits, so do the first 
traces of Spirit virtually contain the whole of that 
History. The Orientals have not attained the knowl- 
edge that Spirit — Man as such — is free ; and be- 
cause they do not know this, they are not free. They 
only know that o?ie is free. But on this very ac- 
count, the freedom of that one is only caprice; 
ferocity — ^brutal recklessness of passion, ot a mild- 
ness and tameness of the desires, which is itself 
only an accident of Nature — mere caprice like the 
former. — That one is therefore only a despot ; not 
a f7'ee man. The consciousness of Freedom first 
arose among the Greeks, and therefore they were 
free ; but they, and the Romans likewise, knew only 
that some are free — not man as such. Even Plato 
and Aristotle did not know this. The Greeks, there- 
fore, had slaves ; and their whole life and the mainte- 
nance of their splendid liberty, was implicated with 
the institution of slavery: a fact, moreover, which 
made that libei'ty on the one hand only an acci- 
dental, transient and limited growth ; on the other 
hand, constituted it a rigorous thraldom of our com- 
mon nature — of the Human. The German nations, 
under the influence of Christianity, were the first to 
attain the consciousness, that man, as man, is free : 
that it is the freedom of Spirit which constitutes its 
essence. This consciousness arose first in religion, 
the inmost region of Spirit; but to introduce the 
principle into the various relations of the actual 
world, involves a more extensive problem than its. 
simple implantation; a problem whose solution and 
application require a severe and lengthened process 



636 Readings in Philosophy 

of culture. In proof of this, we may note that 
slavery did not cease immediately on the reception 
of Christianity. Still less did liberty predominate 
in States ; or Governments and Constitutions adopt 
a rational organization, or recognize freedom as 
their basis. That application of the principle to 
political relations; the thorough molding and inter- 
penetration of the constitution of society by it, is a 
process identical with history itself. I have already 
directed attention to the distinction here involved, 
between a principle as such, and its application; i. e., 
its introduction and carrying out in the actual 
phenomena of Spirit and Life. This is a point of 
fundamental importance in our science, and one 
which must be constantly respected as essential. 
And in the same way as this distinction has at- 
tracted attention in view of the Christian principle 
of self-consciousness — Freedom ; it also shows it- 
self as an essential one, in view of the principle of 
Freedom generally. The History of the world is 
none other than the progress of the consciousness of 
Freedom; a progress whose development according 
to the necessity of its nature it is our business to 
investigate. 

The general statement given above, of the various 
grades in the consciousness of Freedom — and which 
we applied in the first instance to the fact that the 
Eastern nations knew only that one is free; the 
Greek and the Roman world only that some are 
free; while we know that all men absolutely (man as 
man) are free — supplies us with the natural divi- 
sion of Universal History, and suggests the mode of 
its discussion. This is remarked, however, only in- 



The Philosophy of Histpry 637 

cidentally and anticipatively ; some other ideas must 
be first explained. The destiny of the spiritual 
World, and — since this is the substantial Worid, 
while the physical remains subordinate to it, or, in 
the languag-e of speculation, has no truth as against 
the spiritual — the final cause of the Woy^ld at large, 
we allege to be the consciousness of its own freedom 
on the part of Spirit, and ipso facto, the reality of 
that freedom. But that this term "Freedom", with- 
out further qualification, is an indefinite, and incal- 
culable ambiguous term ; and that while that which 
it represents is the ne plus ultra of attainment, it 
is liable to an infinity of misundersandings, confu- 
sions and errors, and to become the occasion for all 
imaginable excesses — has never been more clearly 
known and felt than in modern times. Yet, for the 
present, we must content ourselves with the term 
itself without further definition. Attention was 
also directed to the importance of the infinite differ- 
ence between a principle in the abstract, and its 
realization in the concrete. In the process before us, 
the essential nature of freedom — which involves in 
it absolute necessity — is to be displayed as coming 
to a consciousness of itself (for it is in its very 
nature self-consciousness) and thereby realizing its 
existence. Itself is its own object of attainment, 
and the sole aim of Spirit. This result it is, at 
which the process of the World's History has been 
continually aiming; and to which the sacrifices that 
have ever and anon been laid on the vast altar of 
the earth, through the long lapse of ages, have been 
offered. This is the only aim that sees itself realized 
and fulfilled ; the only pole of repose amid the cease- 



638 Readings in Philosophy 

less change of events and conditions, and the sole 
efficient principle that pervades them. This final 
aim is God's purpose with the world ; but God is the 
Absolutely perfect Being, and can, therefore, will 
nothing other than himself — his own Will. The 
Nature of His Will — that is. His Nature itself — 
is what we here call the Idea of Freedom; translat- 
ing the language of Religion into that of Thought. 
The question, then, which we may next put, is : 
What means does this principle of Freedom use for 
its realization ? This is the second point we have to 
consider. 

(2) The question of the means by which Free- 
dom develops itself to a World, conducts us to the 
phenomenon of History itself. Although Freedom 
is, primarily, an undeveloped idea, the means it uses 
are external and phenomenal ; presenting themselves 
in History to our sensuous vision. The first glance 
at History convinces us that the actions of men 
proceed from their needs, their passions, their char- 
acters and talents ; and impresses us with the belief 
that such needs, passions and interests are the sole 
springs of action — the efficient agents in this scene 
of activity. Among these may, perhaps, be found 
aims of a liberal or universal kind — benevolence it 
may be or noble patriotism; but such virtues and 
general views are but insignificant as compared with 
the World and its doings. We may perhaps see the 
Ideal of Reason actualized in those who adopt such 
aims, and within the sphere of their influence; but 
they bear only a trifling proportion to the mass of 
the human race ; and the extent of that influence is 
limited accordingly. Passions, private aims^ and 



The Philosophy of History 639 

the satisfaction of selfish desires, are, on the other 
hand, most) effective springs of action. Their power 
lies in the fact that they respect none of the limita- 
tions which justice and morality would impose on 
them; and that these natural impulses have a more 
direct influence over man than the artificial and 
tedious discipline that tends to order and self- 
restraint, law and morality. When we look at this 
display of passions, and the consequences of their 
violence; the Unreason which is associated not only 
with them, but even (rather we might say espe- 
cially) with good designs and righteous aims; when 
we see the evil, the vice, the ruin that has befallen 
the most flourishing kingdoms which the mind of 
man ever created; we can scarce avoid^ being filled 
with sorrow at this universal taint of corruption ; 
and, since this decay is not the work of mere Nature, 
but of the Human Will — a moral imbitterment — a 
revolt of the Good Spirit (if it have a place within 
us) may well be the result of our reflections. With- 
out rhetorical exaggeration, a simply truthful com- 
bination of the miseries that have overwhelmed the 
noblest of nations and polities, and the finest ex- 
emplars of private virtue — forms a picture of most 
fearful aspect, and excites emotions of the pro- 
foundest and most hopeless sadness, counterbalanced 
by no consolatory result. We endure in beholding 
it a mental torture, allowing no defence or escape 
but the consideration that what has happened could 
not be otherwise ; that it is a fatality which no in- 
tervention could alter. And at last we draw back 
from the intolerable disgust with which these sor- 
rowful reflections threaten us into the more agree- 



640 Readings in Philosophy 

able environment of our individual life — the Pres- 
ent formed by our private aims and interests. In 
short we retreat into the selfishness that stands on 
the quiet shore, and thence enjoys in safety the dis- 
tant spectacle of "wrecks confusedly hurled". But 
even regarding History as the slaughter-bench at 
which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of 
States, and the virtue of individuals have been vic- 
timized — the question involuntarily arises — to 
what principle, to what final aim these enormous 
sacrifices have been ofi'ered. From this point the 
investigation usually proceeds to that which we have 
made the general commencement of our inquiry. 
Starting from this we pointed out those phenomena 
which made up a picture so suggestive of gloomy 
emotions and thoughtful reflections — as the very 
field which we, for our part, regard as exhibiting 
only the means for realizing what we assert to be 
the essential destiny — the absolute aim — or, which 
comes to the same thing — the true residt of the 
World's History. We have all along purposely 
eschewed ''moral reflections" as a method of rising 
from the scene of historical specialties to the general 
principles which they embody. Besides, it is not the 
interest of such sentimentalities really to rise above 
those depressing emotions ; and to solve the enigmas 
of Providence which the considerations that oc- 
casioned them present. It is essential to their 
character to find a gloomy satisfaction in the empty 
and fruitless sublimities of that negative result. We 
return then to the point of view which we have 
adopted; observing that the successive steps of the 
analysis to which it will lead us, will also evolve the 



The Philosophy of History 641 

conditions requisite for answering the inquiries sug- 
gested by the panorama of sin and suffering that 
history unfolds. 

The first remark we have to make, and which — 
though already presented more than once — cannot 
be too often repeated when the occasion seems to 
call for it — is that what we call principle, aim, 
destiny, or the nature and idea of Spirit, is some- 
thi^ig merely general and abstract. Principle — 
Plan of Existence — Law — is a hidden, undeveloped 
essence, which as such — however true in itself — 
is not completely real. Aims, principles, etc., have 
a place in our thoughts, in our subjective design 
only; but not yet in the sphere of reality. That 
which exists for itself only, is a possibility, a poten- 
tiality; but has not yet emerged into Existence. A 
second element must be introduced in order to pro- 
duce actuality — viz., actuation, realization; and 
whose motive power is the Will — the activity of 
man in the widest sense. It is only by this activity 
that that Idea as well as abstract characteristics 
generally, are realized, actualized ; for of themselves 
they are powerless. The motive power that puts 
them in operation, and gives them determinate 
existence, is the need, instinct, inclination, and pas- 
sion of man. That some conception of mine should 
be developed into act and existence is my earnest 
desire: I wish to assert my personality in connection 
with it: I wish to be satisfied by its execution. If 
I am to exert myself for any object, it must in some 
way or other be my object. In the accomplishment 
of such or such designs I must at the same time find 



642 Readings in Philosophy 

my satisfaction; although the purpose for which I 
exert myself includes a complication of results, many 
of which have no interest for me. This is the abso- 
lute right of personal existence — to find itself satis- 
fied in its activity and labor. If men are to interest 
themselves for anything, they must (so to speak) 
have part of their existence involved in it ; find their 
individuality gratified by its attainment. Here a 
mistake must be avoided. We intend blame, and 
justly impute it as a fault, when we say of an 
individual, that he is "interested" (in taking part 
in such or such transactions), that is, seeks only 
his private advantage. In reprehending this we 
find fault with him for furthering his personal 
aims without any regard to a more compre- 
hensive design ; of which he takes advantage to 
promote his own interest, or which he even sacri- 
fices with this view. But he who is active in pro- 
moting an object, is not simply "interested", but 
interested in that object itself. Language faith- 
fully expresses this distinction. — Nothing therefore 
happens, nothing is accomplished, unless the indi- 
viduals concerned seek their own satisfaction in the 
issue. They are particular units of society; i. e., 
they have special needs, instincts, and interests gen- 
erally, peculiar to themselves. Among these needs 
are not only such as we usually call necessities — 
the stimuli of individual desire and volition — but 
also those connected with individual views and con- 
victions ; or — to use a term expressing less decision 
— leanings of opinion; supposing the impulses of 
reflection, understanding, and reason, to have been 
awakened. In these cases people demand, if they 



The Philosophy of History 643 

are to exert themselves in any direction, that the 
object should commend itself to them; that in point 
of opinion — whether as to its goodness, justice, ad- 
vantage, profit — they should be able to "enter into 
it." This is a consideration of especial importance 
in our age, when people are less than formerly in- 
fluenced by reliance on others, and by authority; 
when, on the contrary, they devote their activities 
to a cause on the ground of their own understanding, 
their independent conviction and opinion. 

We assert then that nothing has been accomplished 
without interest on the part of the actors; and — 
if interest be called passion, inasmuch as the whole 
individuality, to the neglect of all other actual or 
possible interests and claims, is devoted to an object 
with every fibre of volition, concentrating all its 
desires and powers upon it — we may affirm abso- 
lutely that nothing great in the World has been ac- 
complished without passion. Two elements, there- 
fore, enter into the object of our investigation; the 
first the Idea, the second the complex of human pas- 
sions; the one the warp, the other the woof of the 
vast arras-web of Universal History. The concrete 
mean and union of the two is Liberty, under the 
conditions of morality in a State. We have spoken 
of the Idea of Freedom as the nature of Spirit, and 
the absolute goal of History. Passion is regarded as 
a thing of sinister aspect, as more or less immoral. 
Man is required to have no passions. Passion, it is 
true, is not quite the suitable word for what I wish 
to express. I mean here nothing more than human 
activity as resulting from private interests — special, 
or if you will, self-seeking designs — with this qua!- 



644 Readings in Philosophy 

ification, that the whole energy of will and character 
is devoted to their attainment; that other interests 
(which would in themselves constitute attractive 
aims), or rather all things else, are sacrificed to 
them. The object in question is so bound up with 
the man's will, that it entirely and alone determines 
the "hue of resolution", and is inseparable from it. 
It has become the very essence of his volition. For 
a person is a specific existence; not man in general 
(a term to which no real existence corresponds) , but 
a particular human being. The term "character" 
likewise expresses this idiosyncrasy of Will and In- 
telligence. But Character comprehends all peculiar- 
ities whatever; the way in which a person conducts 
himself in private relations, etc., and is not limited 
to his idiosyncrasy in its practical and active phase. 
I shall, therefore, use the term "passion"; under- 
standing thereby the particular bent of character, 
as far aa the peculiarities of volition are not limited 
to private interest, but supply the impelling and actu- 
ating force for accomplishing deeds shared in by the 
community at large. Passion is in the first instance 
the subjective, and therefore the formal side of 
energy, will, and activity — leaving the object or aim 
still undetermined. And there is a similar relation 
of formality to reality in merely individual convic- 
tions, individual views, individual conscience. It is 
always a question of essential importance, what is 
the purport of my conviction, what is the object of 
my passion, in deciding whether the one or the other 
is of a true and substantial nature. Conversely, if it 
is so, it will inevitably attain actual existence — be 
realized. 



The Philosophy of History 645 

From this comment on the second essential element 
in the historical embodiment of an aim, we infer — 
glancing at the institution of the State in passing — 
that a State is then well constituted and internally 
powerful, when the private interest of its citizens is 
one with the common interest of the State ; when the 
one finds its gratification and realization in the other 
— a proposition in itself very important. But in a 
State many institutions must be adopted, much polit- 
ical machinery invented, accompanied by appro- 
priate political arrangements — necessitating long 
struggles of the understanding before w^hat is really 
appropriate can be discovered — involving, more- 
over, contentions with private interest and passions, 
and a tedious discipline of these latter, in order to 
bring about the desired harmony. The epoch, when 
a State attains this harmonious condition, marks the 
period of its bloom, its virtue, its vigor, and its pros- 
perity. But the history of mankind does not begin 
with a conscious aim of any kind, as it is the case 
with the particular circles into which men form 
themselves of set purpose. The mere social instinct 
implies conscious purpose of security for life and 
property; and when society has been constituted, 
this purpose becomes more comprehensive. The His- 
tory of the World begins with general aim — the 
realization of the Idea of Spirit — only in an implicit 
form that is, as Nature; a hidden, most profoundly 
hidden, unconscious instinct; and the whole process 
of History (as already observed) is directed to ren- 
dering this unconscious impulse a conscious one. 
Thus appearing in the form of merely natural exist- 
ence, natural will — that which has been called the 

42 



646 Readings in Philosophy 

subjective side — physical craving, instinct, passion, 
private interest, as also opinion and subjective con- 
ception — spontaneously present themselves at the 
very commencement. This vast congeries of voli- 
tions, interests and activities constitute the instru- 
ments and means of the World-Spirit for attaining 
its object; bringing it to consciousness, and realizing 
it. And this aim is none other than finding itself — 
coming to itself — and contemplating itself in con- 
crete actuality. But that those manifestations of 
vitality on the part of individuals and peoples, in 
which they seek and satisfy their own purposes, are, 
at the same time, the means and instruments of a 
higher and broader purpose of which they know 
nothing — which they realize unconsciously — might 
be made a matter of question ; rather has been ques- 
tioned, and in every variety of form negatived, de- 
cried and contemned as a mere dreaming and ''Phi- 
losophy". But on this point I announced my view at 
the very outset, and asserted our hypothesis — which, 
however, will appear in the sequel, in the form of a 
legitimate inference — and our belief, that Reason 
governs the world, and has consequently governed 
its history. In relation to this independently uni- 
versal and substantial existence — all else is subor- 
dinate, subservient to it, and the means for its devel- 
opment. — The Union of Universal Abstract Exist- 
ence generally with the Individual — the Subjective 
— that this alone is Truth, belongs to the department 
of speculation, and is treated in this general form in 
Logic. — But in the process of the World's History 
itself — as still incomplete — the abstract final aim 
of history is not yet made the distinct object of de- 



The Philosophy of History 647 

sire and interest. While these limited sentiments 
are still unconscious of the purpose they are fulfill- 
ing, the universal principle is implicit in them, and 
is realizing itself through them. The question also 
assumes the form of the Union of Freedom and 
Necessity; the latent abstract process of Spirit being 
regarded as Necessity, while that which exhibits 
itself in the conscious will of men, as their interest, 
belongs to the domain of Freedom. As the meta- 
physical connection (/. e. the connection in the Idea) 
of these forms of thought belongs to Logic, it would 
be out of place to analyze it here. The chief and 
cardinal points only shall be mentioned. 

Philosophy shows that the Idea advances to an 
infinite antithesis; that, viz., between the Idea in its 
free, universal form — in which it exists for itself — 
and the contrasted form of abstract introversion, re- 
flection on itself, which is formal existence — for 
self, personality, formal freedom, such as belongs to 
Spirit only. The universal Idea exists thus as the 
substantial totality of things on the one side, and as 
the abstract essence of free volition on the other side. 
This reflection of the mind on itself is individual 
self -consciousness — the polar opposite of the Idea in 
its general form, and therefore existing in absolute 
Limitation. This polar opposite is consequently lim- 
itation, particularization, for the universal absolute 
being; it is the side of its definite existence; the 
sphere of its formal reality, the sphere of the rever- 
ence paid to God. — To comprehend the absolute con- 
nection of the antithesis, is the profound task of 
metaphysics. This Limitation originates all forms 
of particularity of whatever kind. The formal voli- 



648 Readings in Philosophy 

tion [of which we have spoken] wills itself; desires 
to make its own personality valid in all that it pur- 
poses and does: even the pious individual wishes to 
be saved and happy. This pole of the antithesis, 
existing for itself is — in contrast with the Absolute 
Universal Being — a special separate existence, tak- 
ing congnizance of speciality only, and willing that 
alone. In short, it plays its part in the region of mere 
phenomena. This is the sphere of particular pur- 
poses, in effecting which individuals exert them- 
selves on behalf of their individuality — give it full 
play and objective realization. This is also the 
sphere of happiness and its opposite. He is happy 
who finds his condition suited to his special charac- 
ter, will, fancy, and so enjoys himself in that con- 
dition. The History of the World is not the theatre 
of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages 
in it, for they are periods of harmony — periods 
when the antithesis is in abeyance. Reflection on 
Self — the Freedom above described — is abstractly 
defined as the formal element of the activity of the 
absolute Idea. The realizing activity of which we 
have spoken is the middle term of the Syllogism, one 
of whose extremes is the Universal essence, the Idea, 
which reposes in the penetralia of Spirit; and the 
other, the complex of external things — objective 
matter. That activity is the medium by which the 
universal latent principle is translated into the 
domain of objectivity. 

I will endeavor to make what has been said more 
vivid and clear by examples. 

The building of a house is, in the first instance, a 
subjective aim and design. On the other hand we 



The Philosophy of History 649 

have, as means, the several substances required for 
the work — Iron, Wood, Stones. The elements are 
made u£e of in working up this material : fire to melt 
the iron, wind to blow the fire, water to set wheels in 
motion, in order to cut the wood, etc. The result is, 
that the wind, which has helped to build the house, 
is shut out by the house ; so also are the violence of 
rains and floods, and the destructive powers of fire, 
so far as the house is made fireproof. The stones 
and beams obey the law of gravity — press down- 
ward — and so high walls are carried up. Thus the 
elements are made use of in accordance with their 
nature, and yet to cooperate for a product, by which 
their operation is limited. Thus the passions of men 
are gratified ; they develop themselves and their aims 
in accordance with their natural, tendencies, and 
build up the edifice of human society ; thus fortifying 
a position for Right and Order against thernselves. 
The connection of events above indicated involves 
also the fact, that in history an additional result is 
commonly produced by human actions beyond that 
which they aim at and obtain — that which they 
immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their 
own interest; but something further is thereby ac- 
complished, latent in the actions in question, though 
not present to their consciousness, and not included 
in their design. An analogous example is offered in 
the case of a man who, from a feeling of revenge — 
perhaps not an unjust one, but produced by injury 
on the other's part — bums that other man's house. 
A connection is immediately established between the 
deed itself and a train of circumstances not directly 
included in it, taken abstractedly. In itself it con- 



650 Readings in Philosophy 

sists in merely presenting a small flame to a small 
portion of a beam. Events not involved in that sim- 
ple act follow of themselves. The part of the beam 
which was set fire to is connected with its remote 
portions; the beam itself is united with the wood- 
work of the house generally, and this with other 
houses; so that a wide conflagration ensues, which 
destroys the goods and chattels of many other per- 
sons besides his against whom the act of revenge 
was first directed ; perhaps even costs not a few men 
their lives. This lay neither in the deed abstract- 
edly, nor in the design of the man who committed it. 
But the action has a further general bearing. In the 
design of the doer it was only revenge executed 
against an individual in the destruction of his prop- 
erty, but it is moreover a crime, and that involves 
punishment also. This may not have been present 
to the mind of the perpetrator, still less in his inten- 
tion ; but his deed itself, the general principles it calls 
into play, its substantial content entails it. By this 
example I wish only to impress on you the consider- 
ation that in a simple act, something further may be 
implicated than lies in the intention and conscious- 
ness of the agent. The example before us involves, 
however, this additional consideration, that the sub- 
stance of the act, consequently we may say the act 
itself, recoils upon the perpetrator — reacts upon 
him with destructive tendency. This union of the 
two extremes — the embodiment of a general idea 
in the form of direct reality, and the elevation of a 
speciality into connection with universal truth — is 
brought to pass, at first sight, under the conditions 
of an utter diversity of nature between the two, and 



The Philosophy of History 651 

an indifference of the one extreme toward the other. 
The aims which the agents set before them are lim- 
ited and special; but it must be remarked that the 
agents themselves are intelligent thinking beings. 
The purport of their desires is interwoven with gen- 
eral, essential considerations of justice, good, duty, 
etc. ; for m.ere desire — volition in its rough and sav- 
age forms — falls not within the scene and sphere 
of Universal History. Those general considerations, 
which form at the same time a norm for directing 
aims and actions, have a determinate purport; for 
such an abstraction as "good for its own sake", has 
no place in living reality. If men are to act, they 
must not only intend the Good, but must have de- 
cided for themselves whether this or that particular 
thing is a Good. What special course of action, how- 
ever, is good or not, is determined, as regards the or- 
dinary contingencies of private life, by the laws and 
customs of a State; and here no great difficulty is 
presented. Each individual has his position; he 
knows on the whole what a just, honorable course of 
conduct is. As to ordinary, private relations, the 
assertion that it is difficult to choose the right and 
good — the regarding it as the mark of an exalted 
morality to find difficulties and raise scruples on that 
score — may be set down to an evil or perverse will, 
which seeks to evade duties not in themselves of a 
perplexing nature ; or at any rate, to an idly reflective 
habit of mind — where a feeble will affords no suffi- 
cient exercise to the faculties — leaving them there- 
fore to find occupation within themselves, and to ex- 
pend themselves on moral self-adulation,. 



652 Readings in Philosophy 

It is quite otherwise with the comprehensive rela- 
tions that History has to do with. In this sphere 
are presented those momentous collisions between 
existing, acknowledged duties, laws, rights, and 
those contingencies which are adverse to this fixed 
system; which assail and even destroy its founda- 
tions and existence; whose tenor may nevertheless 
seem good — on the large scale advantageous — yes, 
even indispensable and necessary. These contingen- 
cies realize themselves in History: they involve a 
general principle of a different order from that on 
which depends the permane7ice of a people or a State. 
This principle is an essential phase in the develop- 
ment of the creating Idea, of Truth, striving and 
urging toward [consciousness of] itself. Historical 
men — World-Historical Individuals — are those in 
whose aim such a general principle lies. 

Caesar, in danger of losing a position, not perhaps 
at that time of superiority, yet at least of equality 
with the others who were at the head of the State, 
and of succumbing to those who were just on the 
point of becoming his enemies — belongs essentially 
to this category. These enemies — ^ who were at the 
same time pursuing their personal aims — had the 
form of the constitution, and the power conferred by 
an appearance of justice, on their side. Caesar was 
contending for the maintenance of his position, 
honor, and safety ; and, since the power of his oppo- 
nents included the sovereignty over the provinces of 
the Roman Empire, his victory secured for him the 
conquest of that entire Empire ; and he thus became 
(though leaving the form of the constitution) the 
Autocrat of the State. That which secured for him 



The Philosophy of History 653 

the execution of a design, which in the first instance 
was of negative import — the Autocracy of Rome — 
was, however, at the same time an independently 
necessary feature in the history of Rome and of the 
world. It was not then his private gain merely, but 
an unconscious impulse that occasioned the accom- 
plishment of that for which the time was ripe. Such 
are all great historical men — whose own particular 
aims involve those large issues which are the will 
of the World-Spirit. They may be called Heroes, in- 
asmuch as they have derived their purposes and 
their vocation, not from the calm, regular course of 
things, sanctioned by the existing order ; but from a 
concealed fount — one which has not attained to 
phenomenal, present existence — from that inner 
Spirit, still hidden beneath the surface, which, im- 
pinging on the outer world as on a shell, bursts it in 
pieces, because it is another kernel than that which 
belonged to "the shell in question. They are men, 
therefore, who appear to draw the impulse of their 
life from themselves; and whose deeds have pro- 
duced a condition of things and a complex of his- 
torical relations which appear to be only their in- 
terest, and their work. 

Such individuals had no consciousness of the gen- 
eral Idea they were unfolding, while prosecuting 
those aims of theirs ; on the contrary, they were 
practical, political men. But at the same time they 
were thinking men, who had an insight into the 
requirements of the time — luhat ivas ripe for devel- 
opment. This was the very Truth for their age, for 
their world; the species next in order, so to speak, 
and which was already formed in the womb of time. 



654 Readings in Philosoi^hy 

It was theirs to know this nascent principle; the 
necessary, directly sequent step in progress, which 
their world was to take; to make this their aim, and 
to expend their energy in promoting it. World-his- 
torical men — the Heroes of an epoch — must, there- 
fore, be recognized as its clear-sighted ones; their 
deeds, their words are the best of that time. Great 
men have formed purposes to satisfy themselves, not 
others. Whatever prudent designs and counsels they 
might have learned from others, would be the more 
limited and inconsistent features in their career; 
for it was they who best understood affairs; from 
whom others learned, and approved, or at least ac- 
quiesced in — their policy. For that Spirit which 
had taken this fresh step in history is the inmost 
soul of all individuals ; but in a state of unconscious- 
ness which the great men in question aroused. Their 
fellows, therefore, follow these soul-leaders ; for they 
feel the irresistible power of their own inner Spirit 
thus embodied. If we go on to cast a look at the 
fate of these World-Historical persons, whose voca- 
tion it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit — 
we shall find it to have been no happy one. They at- 
tained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labor 
and trouble ; their whole nature was naught else but 
their master-passion. When their object is attained 
they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They 
die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like 
Caesar; transported to St. Helena, like Napoleon. 
This fearful consolation — that historical men have 
not enjoyed what is called happiness, and of which 
only private life (and this may be passed under very 
various external circumstances) is capable — this 



The Philosophy of History 655 

consolation those may draw from history, who stand 
in need of it ; and it is craved by Envy — vexed at 
what is great and transcendent — striving, there- 
fore, to depreciate it, and to find some flaw in it. 
Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad 
nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their 
thrones ; in consideration of which the possession of 
a throne is tolerated, and men acquiesce in the fact 
that not themselves but the personages in question 
are its occupants. The Free Man, we may observe, 
is not envious, but gladly recognizes what is great 
and exalted, and rejoices that it exists. 

It is in the light of those common elements which 
constitute the interest and therefore the passions of 
individuals, that these historical men are to be re- 
garded. They are great men, because they willed 
and accomplished something great; not a mere 
fancy, a mere intention, but that which met the case 
and fell in with the needs of the age. This mode 
of considering them also excludes the so-called 
"psychological" view, which — serving the purpose 
of envy most effectually — contrives to refer all 
actions to the heart — to bring them under such a 
subjective aspect — as that their authors appear to 
have done everything under the impulse of some 
passion, mean or grand — some morbid craving — 
and on account of these passions and cravings to have 
been not moral men. Alexander of Macedon partly 
subdued Greece, and then Asia; therefore he was 
possessed by a morbid craving for conquest. He is 
alleged to have acted from a craving for fame, for 
conquest; and the proof that these were the impel- 
ling motives is that he did that which resulted in 



656 Readings in Philosophy 

fame. What pedagogue has not demonstrated of 
Alexander the Great — of Julius Caesar — that they 
were instigated by such passions, and were conse- 
quently immoral men ? — whence the conclusion im- 
mediately follows that he, the pedagogue is a better 
man than they, because he has not such passions ; 
a proof of which lies in the fact that he does not 
conquer Asia — vanquish Darius and Porus — but 
while he enjoys life himself, lets others enjoy it too. 
These psychologists are particularly fond of con- 
templating those peculiarities of great historical 
figures which appertain to them as private persons. 
Man must eat and drink; he sustains relations to 
friends and acquaintances ; he has passing impulses 
and ebullitions of temper, "No man is a hero to 
his valet-de-chambre," is a well-known proverb; I 
have added — and Goethe repeated it ten years later 
— "but not because the former is no hero, but be- 
cause the latter is a valet." He takes off the hero's 
boots, assists him to bed, knows that he prefers 
champagne, etc. Historical personages waited upon 
in historical literature by such psychological valets, 
come poorly off; they are brought down by thes'e 
their attendants to a level with — or rather to a few 
degrees below the level of — the morality of such 
exquisite discerners of spirits. The Thersites of 
Homer who abuses the kings is a standing figure 
for all times. Blows — that is, beating with a solid 
.cudgel — he does not get in every age, as in the 
Homeric one ; but his envy, his egotism, is the thorn 
which he has to carry in his flesh ; and the undying 
worm that gnaws him is the tormenting considera- 
tion that his excellent views and vituperations re- 



The Philosophy of History 657 

main absolutely without result in the world. But 
our satisfaction at the fate of Thersitism also, may 
have its sinister side. 

A World-historical individual is not so unwise as 
to indulge a variety of wishes to divide his regards. 
He is devoted/ to the One Aim, regardless of all else. 
It is even possible that such men may treat other 
great, even sacred interests, inconsiderately ; conduct 
which is indeed obnoxious to moral reprehension. 
But so mighty a form must trample down many an 
innocent flower — crush to pieces many an object 
in its path. 

The special interest of passion is thus inseparable 
from the active development of a general principle; 
for it is from the special and determinate and from 
its negation that the Universal results. Particu- 
larity contends with its like, and some loss is in- 
volved in the issue. It is not the general idea that 
is implicated in opposition and combat, and that is 
exposed to danger. It remains in the background, 
untouched and uninjured. This may be called the 
cunning of reason — that it sets the passions to work 
for itself, while that which develops its existence 
through such impulsion pays the penalty, and suf- 
fers loss. For it is phe^iomenal being that is so 
treated, and of this, part is of no value, part is 
positive and real. The particular is for the most 
part of too trifling value as compared with the gen- 
eral: the individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. 
The Idea pays the penalty of determinate existence 
and of corruptibility, not from itself, but from the 
passions of individuals. 



658 Readings in Philosophy 

But though we might tolerate the idea that indi- 
viduals, their desires and the gratification of them; 
are thus sacrificed, and their happiness given up to 
the empire of chance, to which it belongs ; and that, 
as a general rule, individuals come under the cate- 
gory of means to an ulterior end — there is one 
aspect of human individuality which we should hesi- 
tate to regard in that subordinate light, even in 
relation to the highest; since it is absolutely no 
subordinate element, but exists in those individuals 
as inherently eternal and divine. I mean mo7'ality, 
ethics, religion. Even when speaking of the realiza- 
tion of the great ideal aim by means of individuals, 
the subjective element in them — their interest and 
that of their cravings and impulses, their views and 
judgments, though exhibited as the merely formal 
side of their existence — was spoken of as having an 
infinite right to be consulted. The first idea that 
presents itself in speaking of means is that of some- 
thing external to the object, and having no share in 
the object itself. Bjut merely natural things — even 
the commonest lifeless objects — used as means, 
must be of such a kind as adapts them to their pur- 
pose; they must possess something in common with 
it. Human beings least of all sustain the bare 
relation of mere means to the great ideal aim. Not 
only do they, in the very act of realizing it, make it 
the occasion of satisfying personal desires, whose 
purport is diverse from that aim — but they share 
in that ideal aim itself ; and are for that very reason 
objects of their own existence; not formally merely 
as the world of living beings generally is — whose 
individual life is essentially subordinate to that of 



The Philosophy of History 659 

man, and is properly used ivp as an instrument. 
Men, on the contrary, are objects of existence to 
themselves, as regards the intrinsic import of the 
aim in question. To this order belongs that in 
them which we would exclude from the category of 
mere means — Morality, Ethics, Religion. That is 
to say, man is an object of existence in himself only 
in virtue of the Divine that is in him — that which 
was designated at the outset as Reason; which, in 
view of its activity and power of self-determination, 
was called Freedom. And we affirm — without en- 
tering at present on the proof of the assertion — 
that Religion, Morality, etc., have their foundation 
and source in that principle, and so are essentially 
elevated above all alien necessity and chance. And 
here we must remark that individuals, to the extent 
of their freedom, are responsible for the depravation 
and the enfeeblement of morals and religion. This 
is the seal of the absolute and sublime destiny of 
man — that he knows what is good and what is evil ; 
that his destiny is his very ability to will either good 
or evil — in one word, that he is the subject of 
moral imputation, imputation not only of evil, but 
of good; and not only concerning this or that par- 
ticular matter, and all that happens ab extra, but 
also the good and evil attaching to his individual 
freedom. The brute alone is simply innocent. It 
would, however, demand an extensive explanation — 
as extensive as the analysis of moral freedom itself 
— to preclude or obviate all the misunderstandings 
which the statement that what is called innocence 
imports the entire unconsciousness of evil — is wont 
to occasion. 



660 Readings in Philosophy 

In contemplating the fate which virtue, morality, 
even piety experience in history, we must not fall 
into the Litany of Lamentations, that the good and 
pious often — or for the most part — fare ill in the 
world, while the evil-disposed and wicked prosper. 
The term prosperity is used in a variety of meanings 
— riches, outward honor, and the like. But in 
speaking of something which in and for itself con- 
stitutes an aim of existence, that so-called well or 
ill-faring of these or those isolated individuals can- 
not be regarded as an essential element in the ra- 
tional order of the universe. With more justice than 
happiness — or a fortunate environment for indi- 
viduals — it is demanded of the grand aim of the 
world's existence, that it should foster, nay involve 
the execution and ratification of good, moral, right- 
eous purposes. What makes men morally discon- 
tented (a discontent, by the by, on which they some- 
what pride themselves) , is that they do not find 
the present adapted to the realization of aims which 
they hold to be right and just (more especially in 
modern times, ideals of political constitutions) ; they 
contrast unfavorable things as they are, with their 
idea of things as they ought to be. In this case it 
is not private interest nor passion that desires 
gratification, but Reason, Justice, Liberty; and 
equipped with this title, the demand in question as- 
sumes a lofty bearing, and readily adopts a position 
not merely of discontent, but of open revolt against 
the actual condition of the world. To estimate such 
a feeling and such views aright, the demands in- 
sisted upon, and the very dogmatic opinions asserted, 
must be examined. At no time so much as in our 



The Philosophy of History 661 

own, have such general principles and notions been 
advanced, or with greater assurance. If in days 
gone by, history seems to present itself as a struggle 
of passions ; in our time — though displays of pas- 
sion are not wanting — it exhibits partly a pre- 
dominance of the struggle of notions assuming the 
authority of principles ; partly that of passions and 
interests essentially subjective, but under the mask 
of such higher sanctions. The pretensions thus 
contended for as legitimate in the name of that 
which has been stated as the ultimate aim of Reason, 
pass accordingly, for absolute aims — to the same 
extent as Religion, Morals, Ethics. Nothing, as 
before remarked, is now more common than the 
complaint that the ideals which imagination sets up 
are not realized — that these glorious dreams are 
destroyed by cold actuality. These Ideals — which 
in the voyage of life founder on the hard rocks of 
reality — may be in the first instance only subjec- 
tive, and belong to the idiosyncrasy of the indi- 
vidual, imagining himself the highest and wisest. 
Such do not properly belong to this category. For 
the fancies which the individual in his isolation in- 
dulges, cannot be the model for universal reality ; 
just as universal law is not designed for the units of 
the mass. These as such may, in fact, find their 
interests decidedly thrust into the background. But 
by the term "Ideal", we also understand the ideal of 
Reason, of the Good, of the True. Poets, as e. g. 
Schiller, have painted such ideals touchingly and 
with strong emotion, and with the deeply melancholy 
conviction that they could not be realized. In af- 
firming, on the contrary, that the Universal Reason 



662 Readings m Philosophy 

does realize itself, we have indeed nothing to do 
with the individual empirically regarded. That ad- 
mits of degrees of better and worse, since here 
chance and speciality have received authority from 
the Idea to exercise their monstrous power. Much, 
therefore, in particular aspects of the grand phe- 
nomenon might be found fault with. This subjective 
fault-finding — which, however, only keeps in view 
the individual and its deficiency, without taking note 
of Reason pervading the whole — is easy ; and inas- 
much as it asserts an excellent intention with regard 
to the good of the whole, and seems to result from a 
kindly heart, it feels authorized to give itself airs 
and assume great consequence. It is easier to dis- 
cover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in 
Providence, than to see their real import and value. 
For in this merely negative fault-finding a proud 
position is taken — one which overlooks the object, 
without having entered into it — without having 
comprehended its positive aspect. Age generally 
makes men more tolerant; youth is always discon- 
tented. The tolerance of age is the result of the 
ripeness of a judgment which, not merely as the 
result of indifference, is satisfied even with what is 
inferior ; but, more deeply taught by the grave ex- 
perience of life, has been led to perceive the sub- 
stantial, solid worth of the object in question. The . 
insight then to which — in contradistinction from 
those ideals — philosophy is to lead us, is, that the 
real world is as it ought to be — that the truly good 
— the universal divine reason — is not a mere ab- 
straction, but a vital principle capable of realizing 
itself. This Good, this Reason, in its most concrete 



The Philosnphi/ of History 663 

form, is God. God governs the world; tlie actual 
working of his government — the carrying out of 
his plan — is the History of the World. This plan 
philosophy strives to comprehend; for only that 
which has been developed as the result of it, pos- 
sesses bona fide reality. That which does not ac- 
cord with it, is negative, worthless existence. Be- 
fore the pure light of this divine Idea — which is 
no mere Ideal — the phantom of a world whose 
events are an incoherent concourse of fortuitous cir- 
cumstances, utterly vanishes. Philosophy wishes to 
discover the substantial purport, the real side of 
the divine idea, and to justify the so much despised 
Heality of things; for Reason is the comprehension 
of the Divine work. But as to what concerns the 
perversion, corruption, and ruin of religious, ethical 
and moral purposes, and states of society generally, 
it must be affirmed, that in their essence these are 
infinite and eternal ; but that the forms they assume 
may be of a limited order, and consequently belong 
to the domain of mere nature, and be subject to the 
sway of chance. They are therefore perishable, and 
exposed to decay and corruption. Religion and 
morality — in the same way as inherently universal 
essences — have the peculiarity of being present in 
the individual soul, in the full extent of their Idea, 
and therefore truly and really; although they may 
not manifest themselves in it in extenso, and are not 
applied to fully developed relations. The religion, 
the morality of a limited sphere of life — that of a 
shepherd or a peasant, e. g. — in its intensive con- 
centration and limitation to a few perfectly simple 
relations of life — has infinite worth; the same 



664 RrMdincja in Philosophy 

worth as the religion and morality of extensive 
knowledge, and of an existence rich in the compass 
of its relations and actions. This inner focus — 
this simple region of the claims of subjective free- 
dom — the home of volition, resolution and action — 
the abstract sphere of conscience — that which com- 
prises the responsibility and moral value of the in- 
dividual, remains untouched; and is quite shut out 
from the noisy din of the World's History — includ- 
ing not merely external and temporal changes, but 
also those entailed by the absolute necessity insepa- 
rable from the realization of the Idea of Freedom 
itself. But as a general truth this must be regarded 
as settled, that whatever in the world possesses 
claims as noble and glorious has nevertheless a' 
higher existence above it. The claim of the World 
Spirit rises above all special claims. 

These observations may suffice in reference to the 
means which the World Spirit uses for realizing its 
Idea. Stated simply and abstractly, this mediation 
involves the activity of personal existences in whom 
Reason is present as their absolute, substantial be- 
ing; but a basis, in the first instance, still obscure 
and unknown to them. But the subject becomes 
more complicated and difficult when we regard in- 
dividuals not merely in their aspect of activity, but 
more concretely, in conjunction with a particular 
manifestation of that activity in their religion and 
morality — forms of existence which are intimately 
connected with Reason, and share in its absolute 
claims. Here the relation of mere means to an end 
disappears, and the chief bearings of this seeming 



The Philosophy of History 665 

difficulty, in reference to the absolute aim of Spirit, 
have been briefly considered. 

(3) The third point to be analyzed is, therefore 
— what is the object to be realized by these means; 
i. e., what is the form it assumes in the realm of 
reality. We have spoken of means; but in the carry- 
ing out of a subjective, limited aim, we have also to 
take into consideration the element of a material, 
either already present or which has to be procured. 
Thus the question would arise : What is the material 
in which the Ideal of Reason is wrought out? The 
primary answer would be — Personality itself — 
human desires — Subjectivity generally. In human 
knowledge and volition, as its material element, 
Reason attains positive existence. We have con- 
sidered subjective volition where it has an object 
which is the truth and essence of a reality; viz., 
where it constitutes a great world-historical passion. 
As a subjective will, occupied with limited passions, 
it is dependent, and can gratify its desires only 
within the limits of this dependence. But the sub- 
jective will has also a substantial life — a reality — 
in which it moves in the region of essential being, 
and has the essential itself as the object of its 
existence. This essential being is the union of the 
subjective with the ratiorial Will : it is the moral 
Whole, the State, which is that form of reality in 
which the individual has and enjoys his freedom; 
but on the condition of his recognizing, believing in 
and willing that which is common to the Whole, 
And this must not be understood as if the sub- 
jective will of the social unit attained its gratifica- 
tion and enjoyment through that common Will ; as if 



666 Readings in Philosophy 

this were a means provided for its benefit ; as if the 
individual, in his relations to other individuals, thus 
limited his freedom, in order that this universal 
limitation — the mutual constraint of all — might 
secure a small space of liberty for each. Rather, 
we affirm, are Law, Morality, Government, and they 
alone, the positive reality and completion of Free- 
dom. Freedom of a low and limited order is mere 
caprice, which finds its exercise in the sphere of 
particular and limited desires. 

Subjective volition — Passion — is that which sets 
men in activity, that which effects "practical" real- 
ization. The Idea is the inner spring of action ; the 
State is the actually existing, realized moral life. 
For it is the Unity of the universal, essential Will, 
with that of the individual ; and this is "Morality". 
The Individual living in this unity has a moral life; 
possesses a value that consists in this substantiality 
alone. Sophocles in his Antigone, says, "The divine 
commands are not of yesterday, nor of today; no, 
they have an infinite existence, and no one could 
say whence they came." The laws of morality are 
not accidental, but are essentially Rational. It is 
the very object of the State that what is essential 
in the practical activity of men, and in their dis- 
positions, should be duly recognized; that it should 
have a manifest existence, and maintain its posi- 
tion. It is the( absolute interest of Reason that this 
moral Whole should exist: and herein lies the justi- 
fication and merit of heroes who have founded states 
— however rude these may have been. In the his- 
tory of the World, only those peoples can come un- 
der our notice which form a state. For it must 



The Philosophy of History 667 

be understood that this latter is the realization of 
Freedom, i. e. of the absolute final aim, and that it 
exists for its own sake. It must further be under- 
stood that all the worth which the human being pos- 
sesses — all spiritual reality, he possesses only 
through the State. For his spiritual reality con- 
sists in this, that his own essence — Reason — is 
objectively present to him, that it possesses ob- 
jective immediate existence for him. Thus only is 
he fully conscious; thus only is he a partaker of 
morality — of a just and moral social and political 
life. For Truth is the Unity of the universal and 
subjective Will; and the Universal is to be found 
in the State, in its laws, its universal and rational 
arrangements. The State is the Divine Idea as it 
exists on Earth. We have in it, therefore, the ob- 
ject of History in a more definite shape than be- 
fore; that in which Freedom obtains objectivity, 
and lives in the enjoyment of this objectivity. For 
Law is the objectivity of Spirit; volition in its true 
form. Only that will which obeys law, is free; for 
it obeys itself — it is independent and so free. When 
the State or our country constitutes a community of 
existence; when the subjective will of man submits 
to laws — the contradiction between Liberty and 
Necessity vanishes. The Rational has necessary 
existence, as being the reality and substance of 
things, and we are free in recognizing it as law, and 
following it as the substance of our own being. The 
objective and the subjective will are then reconciled, 
and present one identical homogeneous whole. For 
the morality (Sittlichkeit) of the State is not of that 
ethical (moralische) reflective kind, in which one's 



668 Readings in Philosophy 

own conviction bears sway; this latter is rather the 
peculiarity of the modern time, while the true an- 
tique morality is based on the principle of abiding by 
one's duty [to the state at large] . An Athenian 
citizen did what was required of him, as it were from 
instinct: but if I reflect on the object of my activity, 
I must have the consciousness that my will has been 
called into exercise. But morality is Duty — sub- 
stantial Right — a ''second nature" as it has been 
justly called; for the first nature of man is his 
primary merely animal existence. 

The development i?i extenso of the Idea of the 
State belongs to the Philosophy of Jurisprudence; 
but it must be observed that in the theories of our 
time various errors are current respecting it, which 
pass for established truths, and have become fixed 
prejudices. We will mention only a few of them, 
giving prominence to such as have a reference to 
the object of our history. 

The error which first meets us is the direct con- 
tradictory of our principle that the state presents the 
realization of Freedom; the opinion, viz., that man 
is free by nature, but that in society, in the State — 
to which nevertheless he is irresistibly impelled — 
he must limit his natural freedom. That man is 
free by Nature is quite correct in one sense ; viz., 
that he is so according to the Idea of Humanity; 
but we imply thereby that he is such only in virtue 
of his destiny — that he has an undeveloped power 
to become such; for the "Nature" of an object is 
exactly synonymous with its "Idea". But the view 
in question imports more than this. When man is 
spoken of as "free by Nature", the mode of his 



The Philosophy of History 669 

existence as well as his destiny is implied. His merely 
natural and primary condition is intended. In this 
sense a "state of Nature" is assumed in which man- 
kind at large are in the possession of their natural 
rights with the unconstrained exercise and enjoy- 
ment of their freedom. This assumption is not 
indeed raised to the dignity of the historical fact; 
it would indeed be difficult, were the attempt 
seriously made, to point out any such condition as 
actually existing, or as having ever occurred. Ex- 
amples of a savage state of life can be pointed out, 
but they- are marked by brutal passions and deeds 
of violence; while, however rude and simple their 
conditions, they involve social arrangements which 
(to use the common phrase) restrain freedom. That 
assumption is one of those nebulous images which 
theory produces; an idea which it can not avoid 
originating, but which it fathers upon real existence, 
without sufficient historical justification. 

What we find such a state of Nature to be in 
actual experience, answers exactly to the Idea of a 
merely natural condition. Freedom as the ideal of 
that which is original and natural, does not exist 
as 07'iginal and natiiral. Rather must it be first 
sought out and won ; and that by an incalculable 
medial discipline of the intellectual and moral 
powers. The state of Nature is, therefore, pnedomi- 
nantly that of injustice and violence, of untamed 
natural impulses, of inhuman deeds and feelings. 
Limitation is certainly produced by Society and the 
State, but it is a limitation of the mere brute 
emotions and rude instincts ; as also, in a more ad- 
vanced stage of culture, of the premeditated self- 



670 Readings in Philosophy 

will of caprice and passion. This kind of restraint 
is part of the instrumentality by which only the 
consciousness of Freedom and the desire for its at- 
tainment, in its true — that is Rational and Ideal — 
form can be obtained. To the Ideal of Freedom, 
Law and Morality are indispensably requisite ; and 
they are in and for themselves, universal existences, 
objects and aims ; which are discovered only by the 
activity of thought, separating itself from the merely 
sensuous, and developing itself, in opposition there- 
to ; and which must, on the other hand, be introduced 
into and incorporated with the originally sensuous 
will, and that contrarily to its natural inclination. 
The perpetually recurring misapprehension of Free- 
dom consists in regarding that term only in its 
formal, subjective sense, abstracted from its essen- 
tial objects and aims ; thus a constraint put upon 
impulse, desire, passion — pertaining to the par- 
ticular individual as such — a limitation of caprice 
and self-will is regarded as a fettering of Freedom. 
We should on the contrary look upon such limitation 
as the indispensable proviso of emancipation. So- 
ciety and the State are the very conditions in which 
Freedom is realized. 

We must notice a second view, contravening the 
principle of the development of moral relations into 
a legal form. The patriarchal condition is regarded 
— either in reference to the entire race of man, or 
to some branches of it — as exclusively that condi- 
tion of things, in which the legal element is com- 
bined with a due recognition of the moral and emo- 
tional part of our nature; and in which justice, as 
united with these, truly and really influences the in- 



The Philosophy of History 671 

tercoLirse of the social units. The basis of the patri- 
archal condition is the family relation ; which de- 
velops the priTYiary form of conscious morality, suc- 
ceeded by that of the State as its second phase. The 
patriarchal condition is one of transition, in which 
the family has already advanced to the position of a 
race or people; where the union, therefore, has 
already ceased to be simply a bond of love and con- 
fidence, and has become one of plighted service. We 
must first examine the ethical principle of the 
Family. The Family may be reckoned as virtually 
a single person; since its members have either mu- 
tually surrendered their individual personality (and 
consequently their legal position toward each other, 
with the rest of their particular interests and de- 
sires), as in the case of Parents; or have not yet 
attained such an independent personality — (the 
Children — who are primarily in that merely nat- 
ural condition already mentioned) . They live, there- 
fore, in a unity of feeling, love, confidence, and faith 
in each other. And in a relation of mutual love, 
the one individual has the consciousness of himself 
in the consciousness of the other; he lives out of 
self; and in this mutual self-renunciation each re- 
gains the life that had been virtually transferred to 
the other; gains, in fact, that other's existence and 
his own, as involved with that other. The further 
interests connected with the necessities and external 
concerns of life, as well as the development that has 
to take place within their circle, i. e., of the chil- 
dren, constitute a common object for the members of 
the Family. The Spirit of the Family — ^the Penates 
— form one substantial being, as much as the Spirit 



672 Readings in Philosophy 

of a People in the State ; and morality in both cases 
consists in a feeling, a consciousness, and a will, not 
limited to individual personality and interest, but 
embracing the common interests of the members 
generally. But this unity is in the case of the 
Family essentially one of feelijig; not advancing be- 
yond the limits of the merely natural. The piety 
of the Family relation should be respected in the 
liighest degree by the State ; by its means the State 
obtains as its members individuals who are already 
moral (for as mere persons they are not), and who 
in uniting to form a state bring with them that 
sound basis of a political edifice — the capacity of 
feeling one with a Whole. But the expansion of 
the Family to a patriarchal unity carries us beyond 
the ties of blood-relationship — the simply natural 
elements of that basis ; and outside of these limits 
the members of the com^munity must enter upon the 
position of independent personality. A review of 
the patriarchal condition, in extenso, would lead us 
to give special attention to the Theocratical Consti- 
tution. The head of the patriarchal clan is also its 
priest. If the Family in its general relations is not 
yet separated from_ civic society and the state, the 
separation of religion from it has also not yet taken 
place; and so much the less since the piety of the 
hearth is itself a profoundly subjective state of 
feeling. 

D. The Law of Development. 

Comte's formulation of such a law has been of 
widespread interest, and is one of the well known 
features of his positivistic philosophy: 



The Philosophij of History 673 

From^ the study of the development of human 
intelligence, in all directions, and through all times, 
the discovery arises of a great fundamental law, to 
which it is necessarily subject, and which has a 
solid foundation of proof, both in the facts of our 
organization and in our historical experience. The 
law is this : — that each of our leading conceptions, 
— each branch of our knowledge, — passes succes- 
sively through three different theoretical conditions : 
the Theological, or fictitious ; the Metaphysical, or 
abstract; and the Scientific, or positive. In other 
words, the human mind, by its nature, employs in 
its progress three methods of philosophizing, the 
character of which is essentially different, and even 
radically opposed: viz., the theological method, the 
metaphysical, and the positive. Hence arise three 
philosophies, or general systems of conceptions on 
the aggregate of phenomena, each of which excludes 
the others. The first is the necessary point of de- 
parture of the human understanding ; and the third 
is its fixed and definitive state. The second is merely 
a state of transition. 

In the theological state, the human mind, seeking 
the essential nature of beings, the first and final 
causes (the origin and purpose) of all effects, — in 
short, Absolute knowledge, — supposes all phe- 
nomena to be produced by the immediate action of 
supernatural beings. 



' Comte, Auguste : Positive Philosophy, Vol. I, ch. 1, pp. 
1-4, 12, 13 ; translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau, 
1853. 



674 Readings in Philosophy 

In the metaphysical state, which is only a modi- 
fication of the first, the mind supposes, instead of 
supernatural beings, abstract forces, veritable en- 
tities (that is, personified abstractions) inherent in 
all beings, and capable of producing all phenomena. 
What is called the explanation of phenomena is, in 
this stage, a mere reference of each to its proper 
entity. 

In the final, the positive state, the mind has given 
over the vain search after Absolute notions, the 
origin and destination of the universe, and the causes 
of phenomena, and applied itself to the study of their 
laws, — that is, their invariable relations of succes- 
sion and resemlDlance. Reasoning and observation, 
duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. 
What is now understood when we speak of an ex- 
planation of facts is simply the establishment of a 
connection between single phenomena and some 
general facts, the number of which continually 
diminishes with the progress of science. 

The Theological system arrived at the highest per- 
fection of which it is capable when it substituted the 
providential action of a single Being for the varied 
operations of the numerous divinities which had 
been before imagined. In the same way, in the last 
stage of the Metaphysical system, men substitute one 
great entity (Nature) as the cause of all phenomena, 
instead of the multitude of entities at first supposed. 
In the same way, again, the ultimate perfection of 
the Positive system would be (if such perfection 
could be hoped for) to represent all phenomena as 
particular aspects of a single general fact ; — such 
as Gravitation, for instance. 



The Philosophy of History 675 

The importance of the working of this general law 
will be established hereafter. At present, it must 
suffice to point out some of the grounds of it. 

There is no science which, having attained the 
positive stage, does not bear marks of having passed 
through the others. Some time since it was (what- 
ever it might be) composed, as we can now perceive, 
of metaphysical abstractions; and, further back in 
the course of time, it took its form from theological 
conceptions. We shall have only too much occasion 
to see, as we proceed, that our most advanced 
sciences still bear very evident marks of the two 
earlier periods through which they have passed. 

The progress of the individual mind is not only an 
illustration, but an indirect evidence of that of the 
general mind. The point of departure of the in- 
dividual and of the race being the same, the phases 
of the mind of a man correspond to the epochs of the 
mind of the race. Now, each of us is aware, if he 
looks back upon his own history, that he was a theo- 
logian in his childhood, a metaphysician in his youth, 
and a natural philosopher in his manhood. All men 
who are up to their age can verify this for them- 
selves. 

Besides the observation of facts, we have theoreti- 
cal reasons in support of this law. 

The most important of these reasons arises from 
the necessity that always exists for some theory to 
which to refer our facts, combined with the clear 
impossibility that, at the outset of human knowledge, 
men could have formed theories out of the observa- 
tion of facts. All good intellects have repeated, 
since Bacon's time, that there can be no real knowl- 



676 Readings in Philosophy 

edge but that which is based on observed facts. This 
is incontestable, in our present advanced stage ; but, 
if we look back to the primitive stage of human 
knowledge, we shall see that it must have been other- 
wise then. If it is true that every theory must be 
based upon observed facts, it is equally true that 
facts cannot be observed without the guidance of 
some theory. Without such guidance, our facts 
would be desultory and fruitless ; we could not re- 
tain them : for the most part we could not even per- 
ceive them. 

Thus, between the necessity of observing facts in 
order to form a theory, and having a theory in order 
to observe facts, the human mind would have been 
entangled in a vicious circle, but for the natural 
opening afforded by Theological conceptions. This 
is the fundamental reason for the theological char- 
acter of the primitive philosophy. This necessity 
is confirmed by the perfect suitability of the theo- 
logical philosophy to the earliest researches of the 
human mind. It is remarkable that the most inac- 
cessible questions, — those of the nature of beings, 
and the origin and purpose of phenomena, — should 
be the first to occur in a primitive state, while those 
which are really within our reach are regarded as 
almost unworthy of serious study. The reason is 
evident enough : — that experience alone can teach 
us the measure of our powers ; and if men had not 
begun by an exaggerated estimate of what they can 
do, they would never have done all that they are 
capable of. Our organization requires this. At 
such a period there could have been no reception of 
a positive philosophy, whose function is to discover 



The Philosophy of History 677 

the laws of phenomena, and whose leading char- 
acteristic it is to regard as interdicted to human 
reason those sublime mysteries which theology ex- 
plains, even to their minutest details, with the most 
attractive facility. It is just so under a practical 
view of the nature of the researches with which men 
first occupied themselves. Such inquiries offered the 
powerful charm of unlimited empire over the ex- 
ternal world, — a world destined wholly for our use, 
and involved in every way with our existence. The 
theological philosophy, presenting this view, admin- 
istered exactly the stimulus necessary to incite the 
human mind to the irksome labour without which it 
could make no progress. We can now scarcely con- 
ceive of such a state of things, our reason having 
become sufficiently mature to enter upon laborious 
scientific researches, without needing any such- 
stimulus as wrought upon the imaginations of as- 
trologers and alchemists. We have motive enough 
in the hope of discovering the laws of phenomena^ 
with a view to the confirmation or rejection of a 
theory. But it could not be so in the earliest days ; 
and it is to the chimeras of astrology and alchemy 
that we owe the long series of observations and ex- 
periments on which our positive science is based. 
Kepler felt this on behalf of astronomy, and Berthol- 
let on behalf of chemistry. Thus was a spon- 
taneous philosophy, the theological, the only possible 
beginning, method, and provisional system, out of 
which the Positive philosophy could grow. It is 
easy, after this, to perceive how Metaphysical 
methods and doctrines must have afforded the means 
of transition from the one to the other. 



678 Readings in Philosophy 

The human understanding, slow in its advance, 
could not step at once from the theological into the 
positive philosophy. The two are so radically op- 
posed, that an intermediate system of conceptions 
has been necessary to render the transition possible. 
It is only in doing this, that Metaphysical concep- 
tions have any utility whatever. In contemplating 
phenomena, men substitute for supernatural direc- 
tion a corresponding entity. This entity may have 
been supposed to be derived from the supernatural 
action : but it is more easily lost sight of, leaving at- 
tention free for the facts themselves, till, at length, 
metaphysical agents have ceased to be anything more 
than the abstract names of phenomena. It is not 
easy to say by what other process than this our 
minds could have passed from supernatural con- 
siderations to natural; from the theological system 
to the positive. . . . 

It cannot be necessary to prove to anybody who 
reads this work that Ideas govern the world, or 
throw it into chaos; in other words, that all social 
mechanism rests upon Opinions. The great political 
and moral crisis that societies are now undergoing 
is shown by a rigid analysis to arise out of intel- 
lectual anarchy. While stability in fundamental 
maxims is the first condition of genuine social order, 
we are suffering under an utter disagreement which 
may be called universal. Till a certain number of 
general ideas can be acknowledged as a rallying- 
point of social doctrine, the nations will remain in a 
revolutionary state, whatever palliatives may be de- 
vised ; and their institutions can be only provisional. 
But whenever the necessary agreement on first prin- 



The Philosophy of History 679 

ciples can be obtained, appropriate institutions will 
issue from them, without shock or resistance; for 
the causes of disorder will have been arrested by the 
mere fact of the agreement. It is in this direction 
that those must look who desire a natural and regu- 
lar, a normal state of society. 

Now, the existing disorder is abundantly ac- 
counted for by the existence, all at once, of three in- 
compatible philosophies, — the theological, the meta- 
physical, and the positive. Any one of these might 
alone secure some sort of social order ; but while the 
three co-exist, it is impossible for us to understand 
one another upon any essential point whatever. If 
this is true, we have only to ascertain which of the 
philosophies must, in the nature of things, prevail ; 
and, this ascertained, every man, whatever may have 
been his former views, cannot but concur in its tri- 
umph. The problem once recognized cannot remain 
long unsolved ; for all considerations whatever point 
to the Positive Philosophy as the one destined to 
prevail. It alone has been advancing during a 
course of centuries, throughout which the others 
have been declining. The fact is incontestable. 
Some may deplore it, but none can destroy it, nor 
therefore neglect it but under penalty of being be- 
trayed by illusory speculations. This general revo- 
lution of the human mind is nearly accomplished. 
We have only to complete the Positive Philosophy by 
bringing Social phenomena within its comprehen- 
sion, and afterwards consolidating the whole into 
one body of homogeneous doctrine. The marked 
preference which almost all minds, from the highest 
to the commonest, accord to positive knowledge over 



680 Readings in Philosophy 

vague and mystical conceptions, is a pledge of what 
the reception of this philosophy will be when it has 
acquired the only quality that it now wants — a 
character of due generality. When it has become 
complete, its supremacy will take place sponta- 
neously, and will re-establish order throughout so- 
ciety. There is, at present, no conflict but between 
the theological and the metaphysical philosophies. 
They are contending for the task of reorganizing 
society; but it is a work too mighty for either of 
them. The positive philosophy has hitherto inter- 
vened only to examine both, and both are abundantly 
discredited by the process. It is time now to be 
doing something more eff'ective, without wasting 
our forces in needless controversy. It is time to 
complete the vast intellectual operation begun by 
Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, by constructing the 
system of general ideas which must henceforth pre- 
vail among the human race. This is the way to put 
an end to the revolutionary crisis which is torment- 
ing the civilized nations of the world. 



INDEX 



Absolute, 6, V, S3, 359, 388, 392, 400, 
552, 569, 573, 576 ff., 575, 591, 648. 

"Achilles', 57. 

Agnostic Relativism, -582 ff. 

Anaxagoras, 60, 101, 190, 198. 

Anselm, 20, 257 ff. 

Afology, 96 ff. 

A priori, 304, 309, 101 ff., 470, 181, 
485, 525, 527, 512 ff. 

Aristotle, 180 ff., 203, 391, 487. 521, 
635. 

Association of Ideas, 31, 419. 

Atheism, 217. 

Atoms, 62, 64, 67, 68, 70, 72, 331. 

Augustine, 252 ff., 624. 

Bacon, 39, 41, 675, 680. 

Beatitudes, 238. 

Beauty, 114, 120, 586. 

Belief, 8, 574. 

Bergson, 417 ff. 

Berkeley, 323 ff., 373. 

Brain and Mind, 272, 292 ff.. 430, 438, 

507, 510, 517. 
Buechner, 292. 

Categorical Imperative, 480 ff. 

Categories, 310, 459, 485 ff., 492 ff. 

Causation, 456, 503 ff., 520. 

Change, 52 ff., 186 ff., 432 ff., .595. 

Charm, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37. 

Chinese, 27. 

Christianity, 20, 238 ff., 252, 583, 635. 

Comte, 12, 673 ff. 

Consciousness, 428, 438. 

Conservatism, 45. 

Contingency, 421. 

Contradiction, 80. 

Copy Theory, 287, 563 ff., 568 ff. 

Correspondence, 550. 

Cosmology, 48 ff., 62 ff., 146 ff., 200 

ff., 222 ff., 252 ff., 331 ff. 
Criticism, 308. 



Critique of Pure Reason, 302, 309, 

315, 459, 485, 492, 524, 527, 542. 
Crucifixion, 242 ff. 

Death, 25, 203, 2.50, 335, 440, 585 ff.. 

611 ff. 
Deception, of Senses, 43, 90 ff. 
Democritus, 02, 374. 
Descartes, 269 ff., 272, 441, 680. 
Development, Law of, 073. 
Dialectic, 8. 

Divisibility, Infinite, 69. 
Dreams, 24, 26. 
Dualism, 269, 272 ff. 

Element, 62, 207. 
Emanation, 222, 225, 2.30. 
Empedocles, 59, 76. 
Entelechy, 333, 334. 
Epicurus, 67 ff., 202 ff. 
Evil, 234, 252 ff., 367, 598. 
Evolution, 417, 590 ff. 

Faith, 257. 

'Faith Ladder', 414. 

Family, 671. 

Fichte, 10, 339. 

'Flying Arrow', 57. 

Force, 27. 

Form, 187 ff., 190, 192, 198, 263, 389. 

Freedom, 307, 315, 339, 316, 358, 379, 

417, 431, 439, 475 ff., 583, 633, 

643, 655, 668. 

Genesis of Things, 51, 03, 61. 65, 140 
ff., 206 ff., 219 ff., 428. 

Geometry, 6 ff., .50. 

God, 9, 49, 53, 54, 116, 147, 419, 202, 
207, 208, 219, 253, 257 ff., 266, 272, 
317, 338, 351, 357, 378, 387, 388, 
513, 524, 561, 580 ff., .592, 601, 019. 
623, 663. 

Good, 143, 145, 164 ff., 199, 213 ff., 
223, 253 ff., 584, 651, 662. 



(081) 



682 



Index 



Gorgias, 97. 
Gorgias, 84. 

Happiness, 60, 112, 199, 202, 213, 237, 

238, 318. . 
Hasty Generalization, 41 ff., 47. 
Hegel, 10, 18, 353, .389, 632. 
Heraclitus, 52 ff., 76. 
History, Philosophy of, 621 ff., 624 

ff., 632 ff. 
Homer, 54, 7C, 77, 141. 
Hume, 444 ff., 503 ff. 
Hypothesis, 6, 7, 9. 

Idealism, 113 ff., .323 ff., 517 ff. 
Idea, 120, 281, 283, 323, 372, 501, 531 

ff., 547, 641, 678. 
Identity, 447 ff., 453 ff., 460, 466, 46S. 
Immortality, 25, 199, 203, 316, 340, 605 

ff., 618. 
Individuality, 425, 605 ff., 652. 
Infinity of the Universe, 68. 
Innate Ideas, 534, 540. 
Intelligence, 13, 53, 147, 149, 225. 

262, 264, 266, 435. 
Interaction, 273. 
Intuition, 435. 

James, 268, 372, 400, 568. 

jesus, 242, 247 ff. 

Justice, 108 ff., 115, 179, 541, 660. 

Kant, 302 ff., 459, 475, 485, 492, 524, 
527, 542, 555. 

Knowledge, 4 ff., 11 ff., 65, 74, 84, 
102 ff., 113 ff., 118, 129 ff., 137 ff., 
145, 148, 167, 171, 220 ff., 261, 27], 
279, 280, 285 ff., 289, 304 ff., 309, 
323 ff., 333, 372, 393, 396, 441, 460 
ff., 466, 472, 48o, 493, 502, 504, 537 
ff., 542, 548 ff., 557 ff., 568. 

Law of Contradiction, 55, 535. 

Law of Development, 673. 

Law of Identity, 55, 535. 

Leibniz, 331 ff. 

Life, 417 ff., 423, 434. 

Locke, 274, 283, 288, 373, 533 ff., 557. 

Logos, 246. 



539, 


•310, 


263, 


270. 


432, 


588 



227, 
446. 

476 



Love, 59, 113 ff., 122, 125 ff. 

Magic, 27 ff., 33 ff. 

Maieutic, 103 ff., 129. 

Man, 118, 168 ff., 200, 2-55, 368, 589 

ff., 600 ff., 604, 655. 
Man Measure Doctrine, 74. 
Materialism, 62, 68, 292 ff. 
Mathematics, .303, 493 ff., 

565, 576. 
Matter, 187 ff., 192, 231 ff., 

274 ff., 327, 340, 6.33. 
Mechanism, 04 ff., 162, 419 

ff. 
Meletus, 96, 97. 
Memory, 26, 27, 336. 
Meno, 129. 
Middle Ages, 20. 
Mind, 61, 161, 198, 199, 224, 225, 

269, 272, 292, 324, 365, 443, 
Monad, 331. 
Morality, 12, 111, 112, 318, 347, 

ff., 540, 566, 619, 658, 666. 668. 
Motion, 69, 81, 82. 
Mysticism, 114 ff., 219 ff., 549, 5.52. 

615. 

Negative Instance, 42. 
Neo-Realism, 372. 

Observation, 46, 47. 

Omens, 27. 

'One', 219, 223. 

Ontological Proof, 257 ff. 

Opinion, 8. 

Organism, 417 ff., 427. 

Origination, 189 ff., 192, 428 ff. 

Parallelism, -370 ff. 

Parmenides, 55 ff., 63, 

Passivity, 198. 

Paul, 247. 

Perception, 71, 333, 334, 460, 495. 

Personality, 26, 27, 592 ff., 600 ff., 

665. 
Persuasion, 84. 
Phaedo, 160 ff. 
Phaedrus, 113 ff. 
Philosophy, 1 ff. 

119, 436. 



9 ff., 16 ff., 117 



Index 



683 



Physics, 303. 

Plato, 1 ff., A, 74 ff., 84 ff., 96 ff., 

106 fif., 113 ff., 129 ff., 137 ff., 

146 ff., 160 ff., 263, 635, 663. 
Pleasure, 177, 204, 205. 
Plenum, 62, 332. 

Political Philosophy, 12, 645, 665. 
Positivism, 673 ft'. 
Postulates of Practical Reason, 315 

ff., 320. 
Potentiality, 196, 198, 262, ,521 ff. 
Pragmatism, 410, 568, 578. 
Primary Qualities, 284, 287, 327. 
Principle, 6 ff., 47, 48, 50, 221, 222, 

224. 
Progress, 595 ff. 
Protagoras, 58, 74, 76 ff. 
'Pure Experience', .374. 

Qualities, 283. 

Radicalism, 45. 

Realism, 261, 551. 

Reality, 23, 49 ff., 55, 58 ff., 64, 224, 

388, 547, 554, 591, 606. 
Reason, 8, 53, 147, 196, 340, 391, 632, 

660, 661. 
Reflection, 281, 337, 428, 506. 
Relativity of Knowledge, 13, 76 ff. 
Religion, 17 ff., 658. 
Reminiscence, 118 ff., 137, 145. 
Republic, 1, 4, 106, 1.37 ff., 164 ff., 

171 ff. 
Resurrection, 245, 247 ff. 
Rhetoric, 84 ft". 
Royce, 267, 401, 547, .575, 590. 
Russell, .582. 

Salvation, 236. 
Scluilasticism, 20, 257, 261. 
Science, 9. 13 ff., 393, 398, 514, 073, 

675. 
Secondary Qualities, 285, 287, 327. 
Self, 269 ff., .324, 3S8, 425, 442, 444 

ff., 465 ff., 474, 5.52, 585, 590, 601 

ff., 604. 
Sextus Empiricus, 89. 
Sin, 234. 
Skepticism, 74 ff.^ 444 ff. 



Socrates, 96 ff., 103 ff., 106 ff. . 

Solidity, 274 ff. 

Sophists, 74, 79, 84. 

Sorcerers, 32. 

Soul, 21 ff.,,30, 49, 65, 113, 116, 168, 

177, 193 ff., 224, 228, 262, 2(>4, 
. 278 ff., 335, 437, 448. 
Space, 275 ff., 424, 499, 524 ff. 
Spencer, 9. 

Spinoza, 17, 370, 378, 404, 548. 
Spirit, 274, 324, 326, 340, 348, 395, 

632, 646, 654. 
Spirits, 21, 44. 
Stoicism, 206 ff., 583. 
Substance, 22, 187, 271, 289, 338, 378, 

380 ff., 388, 394, 564. 
Supernaturalism, 580. 

Teleology, 160, 164, 425 ff., 434. 

Thales, 48 ff. 

Theaetetus, 74 ff., 103 ff. 

Thinking, 269, 271. 

Thomas Aquinas, 261 ff. 

Thought, 353 ff. 

Timaeus, 146, 168 ff. 

Time, 155 ff., 402, 499, 527 ff., 583, 

593, 601, 612. 
Transmigration, 118. 
Tropes, 89. 
Truth, 5, 118, 361, 390, 548, 557, 568, 

570, 573, 576 ff.,. 653, 667. 

Understanding, 8, 257, 472, 546. 
Unity, 219, 329, 400 ff. 

Values, 580 ff. 

Virtue, 111 ff., 171 ff., 212 ff., 2.38 

ff., 541. 
Void, 62, 63, 69, 209. 
Voluntarism, 3.39 ff.,- 350, 578, 606. 

Wise Man, 216. 
Words, 45, 46. 

Xenophanes, 53 fl'., 63. 

Zeno, Eleatic, 57 ff. 

Zeno, Stoic, 10, 206, 207, 211. 



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